The Stirrup-Cup
My short and happy day is done,The long and dreary night comes on;And at my door the Pale Horse stands,To carry me to unknown lands.
His whinny shrill, his pawing hoof,Sound dreadful as a gathering storm;And I must leave this sheltering roof,And joys of life so soft and warm.
Tender and warm the joys of life,--Good friends, the faithful and the true;My rosy children and my wife,So sweet to kiss, so fair to view.
So sweet to kiss, so fair to view,--The night comes down, the lights burn blue;And at my door the Pale Horse stands,To bear me forth to unknown lands.
Words in this poem
- dreary a.
- Sorrowful; distressful. [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
- dreadful a.
- Full of dread or terror; fearful.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Stirrup-Cup is in the public domain. This text is taken from Pike County Ballads and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #6062; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Hay, The Stirrup-Cup, in Pike County Ballads and Other Poems (1871), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6062, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hay-pike-county/the-stirrup-cup.html, id L21605.
Form and metre
The Stirrup-Cup is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 --AA done · on · standsA · landsA
- 2 ABAB hoofA · stormB · roofA · warmB
- 3 ABAB lifeA · trueB · wifeA · viewB
- 4 AABB viewA · blueA · standsB · landsB
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 iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My short and happy day is done, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The long and dreary night comes on; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And at my door the Pale Horse stands, | 8 | ········ |
| To carry me to unknown lands. | 8 | ·/˘··˘/· |
| His whinny shrill, his pawing hoof, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Sound dreadful as a gathering storm; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And I must leave this sheltering roof, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And joys of life so soft and warm. | 8 | ········ |
| Tender and warm the joys of life,-- | 8 | /˘······ |
| Good friends, the faithful and the true; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| My rosy children and my wife, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| So sweet to kiss, so fair to view. | 8 | ········ |
| So sweet to kiss, so fair to view,-- | 8 | ········ |
| The night comes down, the lights burn blue; | 8 | ········ |
| And at my door the Pale Horse stands, | 8 | ········ |
| To bear me forth to unknown lands. | 8 | ·····˘/· |
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.