There Are Sounds in the Dark Roncesvalles
There are sounds in the dark Roncesvalles,There are echoes on Biscay’s wild shore;There are murmurs--but not of the torrent,Nor the wind, nor the pine-forest’s roar.
’Tis a day of the spear and the banner,Of armings and hurried farewells;Rise, rise on your mountains, ye Spaniards!Or start from your old battle-dells.
There are streams of unconquer’d AsturiasThat have roll’d with your father’s free blood:Oh! leave on the graves of the mightyProud marks where their children have stood!
About this text
There Are Sounds in the Dark Roncesvalles 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, There Are Sounds in the Dark Roncesvalles, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/there-are-sounds-in-the-dark-roncesvalles.html, id L19637.
Form and metre
There Are Sounds in the Dark Roncesvalles is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is anapaestic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in anapaestic trimeter.
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 -A-A roncesvalles · shoreA · torrent · roarA
- 2 -A-A banner · farewellsA · spaniards · dellsA
- 3 -A-A asturias · bloodA · mighty · stoodA
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 anapaestic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There are sounds in the dark Roncesvalles, | 9 | ········· |
| There are echoes on Biscay’s wild shore; | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| There are murmurs--but not of the torrent, | 10 | ··/˘····/˘ |
| Nor the wind, nor the pine-forest’s roar. | 9 | ······/˘· |
| ’Tis a day of the spear and the banner, | 10 | ········/˘ |
| Of armings and hurried farewells; | 8 | ·/˘·/˘·/ |
| Rise, rise on your mountains, ye Spaniards! | 9 | ····/˘·/˘ |
| Or start from your old battle-dells. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| There are streams of unconquer’d Asturias | 10 | ·········· |
| That have roll’d with your father’s free blood: | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| Oh! leave on the graves of the mighty | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Proud marks where their children have stood! | 8 | ····/˘·· |
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