Song of Hope
O SWEET To-morrow!—After to-dayThere will awayThis sense of sorrow.Then let us borrowHope, for a gleamingSoon will be streaming,Dimmed by no gray—No gray!
While the winds wing usSighs from The Gone,Nearer to dawnMinute-beats bring us;When there will sing usLarks of a gloryWaiting our storyFurther anon—Anon!
Doff the black token,Don the red shoon,Right and retuneViol-strings broken;Null the words spokenIn speeches of rueing,The night cloud is hueing,To-morrow shines soon—Shines soon!
Words in this poem
- borrow v. t.
- To receive from another as a loan, with the implied or expressed intention of returning the identical article or its equivalent in kind; -- the opposite of lend. [OE. borwen, AS. borgian, fr. borg, borh, pledge; akin to D. borg, G. borg; prob. fr. root of AS. beorgan to protect. Borough.]
- streaming a.
- Sending forth streams.
- anon adv.
- Straightway; at once. [OE. anoon, anon, anan, lit., in one (moment), fr. AS. on in + an one. See On and One.]
- doff v. t.
- To put off, as dress; to divest one's self of; hence, figuratively, to put or thrust away; to rid one's self of. And made us doff our easy robes of peace. [Do + off. See Do, v. t., 7.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song of Hope is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of the Past and the Present, Project Gutenberg ebook #3168; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hardy, Song of Hope, in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3168, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-past-and-present/song-of-hope.html, id L16890.
Form and metre
Song of Hope is 27 lines in 3 stanzas of 9 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 81% of the lines. The metre is dactylic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 4.4 syllables. 9 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 41% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in dactylic dimeter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBA-CCBB morrowA · dayB · awayB · sorrowA · borrow · gleamingC · streamingC · grayB · grayB
- 2 ABBAACCDD usA · goneB · dawnB · usA · usA · gloryC · storyC · anonD · anonD
- 3 ABBAACCBB tokenA · shoonB · retuneB · brokenA · spokenA · rueingC · hueingC · soonB · soonB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against dactylic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O SWEET To-morrow!— | 5 | ···/˘ |
| After to-day | 4 | ···· |
| There will away | 4 | ··˘/ |
| This sense of sorrow. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Then let us borrow | 5 | ···/· |
| Hope, for a gleaming | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Soon will be streaming, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Dimmed by no gray— | 4 | ···· |
| No gray! | 2 | ·· |
| While the winds wing us | 5 | ····· |
| Sighs from The Gone, | 4 | ···· |
| Nearer to dawn | 4 | /˘·· |
| Minute-beats bring us; | 5 | /˘··· |
| When there will sing us | 5 | ····· |
| Larks of a glory | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Waiting our story | 6 | /˘/˘/˘ |
| Further anon— | 4 | /˘˘/ |
| Anon! | 2 | ˘/ |
| Doff the black token, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Don the red shoon, | 4 | ···· |
| Right and retune | 4 | ···· |
| Viol-strings broken; | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| Null the words spoken | 5 | ···/˘ |
| In speeches of rueing, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| The night cloud is hueing, | 5 | ····· |
| To-morrow shines soon— | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Shines soon! | 2 | ·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.