A Song of Doubt
The day is quenched, and the sun is fled;God has forgotten the world!The moon is gone, and the stars are dead;God has forgotten the world!
Evil has won in the horrid feudOf ages with The Throne;Evil stands on the neck of Good,And rules the world alone.
There is no good; there is no God;And Faith is a heartless cheatWho bares the back for the Devil's rod,And scatters thorns for the feet.
What are prayers in the lips of death,Filling and chilling with hail?What are prayers but wasted breathBeaten back by the gale?
The day is quenched, and the sun is fled;God has forgotten the world!The moon is gone and the stars are dead;God has forgotten the world!
Words in this poem
- horrid a.
- Rough; rugged; bristling. [L. horridus. See Horror, and cf. Ordure.]
- heartless a.
- Without a heart.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Song of Doubt is in the public domain. This text is taken from Bitter-Sweet: A Poem, Project Gutenberg ebook #6442; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: J. G. Holland, A Song of Doubt, in Bitter-Sweet (1858), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/holland-bitter-sweet/a-song-of-doubt.html, id L23252.
Form and metre
A Song of Doubt is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 4 of its 5 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABAB fledA · worldB · deadA · worldB
- 2 -A-A feud · throneA · good · aloneA
- 3 ABAB godA · cheatB · rodA · feetB
- 4 ABAB deathA · hailB · breathA · galeB
- 5 ABAB fledA · worldB · deadA · worldB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The day is quenched, and the sun is fled; | 9 | ········· |
| God has forgotten the world! | 7 | ··˘/˘·· |
| The moon is gone, and the stars are dead; | 9 | ········· |
| God has forgotten the world! | 7 | ··˘/˘·· |
| Evil has won in the horrid feud | 8 | /····/˘· |
| Of ages with The Throne; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Evil stands on the neck of Good, | 7 | /······ |
| And rules the world alone. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| There is no good; there is no God; | 8 | ········ |
| And Faith is a heartless cheat | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Who bares the back for the Devil's rod, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| And scatters thorns for the feet. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| What are prayers in the lips of death, | 8 | ········ |
| Filling and chilling with hail? | 7 | /˘·/˘·· |
| What are prayers but wasted breath | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Beaten back by the gale? | 6 | /˘···· |
| The day is quenched, and the sun is fled; | 9 | ········· |
| God has forgotten the world! | 7 | ··˘/˘·· |
| The moon is gone and the stars are dead; | 9 | ········· |
| God has forgotten the world! | 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.