The Poet's Simple Faith
You say, "Where goest thou?" I cannot tell,And still go on. If but the way be straight,It cannot go amiss! before me liesDawn and the Day; the Night behind me; thatSuffices me; I break the bounds; I see,And nothing more; believe, and nothing less.My future is not one of my concerns.
About this text
The Poet's Simple Faith 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, The Poet's Simple Faith, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/the-poet-s-simple-faith.html, id L26818.
Form and metre
The Poet's Simple Faith is 7 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| You say, "Where goest thou?" I cannot tell, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| And still go on. If but the way be straight, | 10 | ·········· |
| It cannot go amiss! before me lies | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| Dawn and the Day; the Night behind me; that | 10 | ·········· |
| Suffices me; I break the bounds; I see, | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| And nothing more; believe, and nothing less. | 10 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘· |
| My future is not one of my concerns. | 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.