O, Time and Change, They Range and Range
O, TIME and Change, they range and rangeFrom sunshine round to thunder!—They glance and go as the great winds blow,And the best of our dreams drive under:For Time and Change estrange, estrange—And, now they have looked and seen us,O, we that were dear, we are all-too nearWith the thick of the world between us.
O, Death and Time, they chime and chimeLike bells at sunset falling!—They end the song, they right the wrong,They set the old echoes calling:For Death and Time bring on the primeOf God’s own chosen weather,And we lie in the peace of the Great ReleaseAs once in the grass together.
Words in this poem
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
- chime n.
- The harmonious sound of bells, or of musical instruments. [OE. chimbe, prop., cymbal, OF. cymbe, cymble, in a dialectic form, chymble, F. cymbale, L. cymbalum, fr. Gr. Cymbal.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
O, Time and Change, They Range and Range is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #1568; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: W. E. Henley, O, Time and Change, They Range and Range, in Poems (1898), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1568, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/henley-poems/o-time-and-change-they-range-and-range.html, id L12455.
Form and metre
O, Time and Change, They Range and Range is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.3 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 31% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AB-BAC-C rangeA · thunderB · blow · underB · estrangeA · usC · near · usC
- 2 ABBBAC-C chimeA · fallingB · wrongB · callingB · primeA · weatherC · release · togetherC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O, TIME and Change, they range and range | 8 | ········ |
| From sunshine round to thunder!— | 7 | ·/···/˘ |
| They glance and go as the great winds blow, | 9 | ········· |
| And the best of our dreams drive under: | 9 | ····/···· |
| For Time and Change estrange, estrange— | 8 | ····˘/˘/ |
| And, now they have looked and seen us, | 8 | ········ |
| O, we that were dear, we are all-too near | 10 | ·········· |
| With the thick of the world between us. | 9 | ········· |
| O, Death and Time, they chime and chime | 8 | ········ |
| Like bells at sunset falling!— | 7 | ···/·/˘ |
| They end the song, they right the wrong, | 8 | ········ |
| They set the old echoes calling: | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| For Death and Time bring on the prime | 8 | ········ |
| Of God’s own chosen weather, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| And we lie in the peace of the Great Release | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| As once in the grass together. | 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.