Old Norway: A Mountain War-Song
Arise! Old Norway sends the wordOf battle on the blast;Her voice the forest pines hath stirr’d,As if a storm went past;Her thousand hills the call have heard,And forth their fire-flags cast.
Arm, arm, free hunters! for the chase,The kingly chase of foes!’Tis not the bear or wild wolf’s raceWhose trampling shakes the snows:Arm, arm! ’tis on a nobler traceThe northern spearman goes.
Our hills have dark and strong defiles,With many an icy bed;Heap there the rocks for funeral pilesAbove the invader’s head!Or let the seas, that guard our isles,Give burial to his dead!
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- spearman n.
- One who is armed with a spear. Acts xxiii. 23.
- invader n.
- One who invades; an assailant; an encroacher; an intruder.
- burial n.
- A grave; a tomb; a place of sepulture. [OE. buriel, buriels, grave, tomb, AS. byrgels, fr. byrgan to bury, and akin to OS. burgisli sepulcher.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Old Norway: A Mountain War-Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Felicia Hemans, Project Gutenberg ebook #66785; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Felicia Hemans, Old Norway: A Mountain War-Song, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/old-norway-a-mountain-war-song.html, id L19710.
Form and metre
Old Norway: A Mountain War-Song is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABAB. 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 ABABAB wordA · blastB · stirr'dA · pastB · heardA · castB
- 2 ABABAB chaseA · foesB · raceA · snowsB · traceA · goesB
- 3 ABABAB defilesA · bedB · pilesA · headB · islesA · deadB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Arise! Old Norway sends the word | 8 | ˘/·/···· |
| Of battle on the blast; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Her voice the forest pines hath stirr’d, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| As if a storm went past; | 6 | ······ |
| Her thousand hills the call have heard, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And forth their fire-flags cast. | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Arm, arm, free hunters! for the chase, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The kingly chase of foes! | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| ’Tis not the bear or wild wolf’s race | 8 | ········ |
| Whose trampling shakes the snows: | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Arm, arm! ’tis on a nobler trace | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The northern spearman goes. | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Our hills have dark and strong defiles, | 9 | /˘······· |
| With many an icy bed; | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| Heap there the rocks for funeral piles | 9 | ·····/˘˘· |
| Above the invader’s head! | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| Or let the seas, that guard our isles, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Give burial to his dead! | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
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.