Indignation!
Thou who loved Juvenal, and filedHis style so sharp to scar imperial brows,And lent the lustre lighteningThe gloom in Dante's murky verse that flows--Muse Indignation! haste, and helpMy building up before this roseate realm,And its so fruitless victories,Whence transient shame Right's prophets overwhelm,So many pillories, deserved!That eyes to come will pry without avail,Upon the wood impenetrant,And spy no glimmer of its tarnished tale.
Words in this poem
- lustre n.
- A period of five years; a lustrum. [L. lustrum: cf. F. lustre.]
- roseate a.
- Full of roses; rosy; as, roseate bowers. [Cf. L. roseus, rosatus, prepared from roses. See Roseal, Rose.]
- fruitless a.
- Lacking, or not bearing, fruit; barren; destitute of offspring; as, a fruitless tree or shrub; a fruitless marriage.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Indignation! is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, the various hands translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Victor Hugo, Indignation!, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/indignation.html, id L26792.
Form and metre
Indignation! is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 ---A-BAB-C-C filed · brows · lightening · flowsA · help · realmB · victoriesA · overwhelmB · deserved · availC · impenetrant · taleC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thou who loved Juvenal, and filed | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| His style so sharp to scar imperial brows, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| And lent the lustre lightening | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
| The gloom in Dante's murky verse that flows-- | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Muse Indignation! haste, and help | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| My building up before this roseate realm, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And its so fruitless victories, | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
| Whence transient shame Right's prophets overwhelm, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| So many pillories, deserved! | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘˘/ |
| That eyes to come will pry without avail, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Upon the wood impenetrant, | 8 | ········ |
| And spy no glimmer of its tarnished tale. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
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.