The Sacking of the City
Thy will, O King, is done! Lighting but to consume,The roar of the fierce flames drowned even the shouts and shrieks;Reddening each roof, like some day-dawn of bloody doom,Seemed they in joyous flight to dance about their wrecks.
Slaughter his thousand giant arms hath tossed on high,Fell fathers, husbands, wives, beneath his streaming steel;Prostrate, the palaces, huge tombs of fire, lie,While gathering overhead the vultures scream and wheel!
Died the pale mothers, and the virgins, from their arms,O Caliph, fiercely torn, bewailed their young years' blight;With stabs and kisses fouled, all their yet quivering charms,At our fleet coursers' heels were dragged in mocking flight.
Lo! where the city lies mantled in pall of death;Lo! where thy mighty hand hath passed, all things must bend!Priests prayed, the sword estopped blaspheming breath,Vainly their cheating book for shield did they extend.
Some infants yet survived, and the unsated steelStill drinks the life-blood of each whelp of Christian-kind,To kiss thy sandall'd foot, O King, thy people kneel,And golden circlets to thy victor-ankle bind.
Words in this poem
- streaming a.
- Sending forth streams.
- whelp n.
- One of the young of a dog or a beast of prey; a puppy; a cub; as, a lion's whelps. [AS. hwelp; akin to D. welp, G. & OHG. welf, Icel. hvelpr, Dan. hvalp, Sw. valp.]
- kneel v. i.
- To bend the knee; to fall or rest on the knees; -- sometimes with down. [OE. knelen, cneolien; akin to D. knielen, Dan. knæle. See Knee.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Sacking of the City 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 Sacking of the City, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/the-sacking-of-the-city.html, id L26727.
Form and metre
The Sacking of the City is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is alexandrines, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in alexandrines.
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 consumeA · shrieksB · doomA · wrecksB
- 2 ABAB highA · steelB · lieA · wheelB
- 3 ABAB armsA · blightB · charmsA · flightB
- 4 ABAB deathA · bendB · breathA · extendB
- 5 ABAB steelA · kindB · kneelA · bindB
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 alexandrines. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Thy will, O King, is done! Lighting but to consume, | 12 | ······/˘··˘/ |
| The roar of the fierce flames drowned even the shouts and shrieks; | 12 | ·······/···· |
| Reddening each roof, like some day-dawn of bloody doom, | 12 | /˘·······/˘· |
| Seemed they in joyous flight to dance about their wrecks. | 12 | ···/˘······· |
| Slaughter his thousand giant arms hath tossed on high, | 12 | /˘·/˘/˘····· |
| Fell fathers, husbands, wives, beneath his streaming steel; | 12 | ·/˘/˘····/˘· |
| Prostrate, the palaces, huge tombs of fire, lie, | 12 | /˘·/˘˘···/˘· |
| While gathering overhead the vultures scream and wheel! | 12 | ·/˘/˘/·/˘··· |
| Died the pale mothers, and the virgins, from their arms, | 12 | ···/˘··/˘··· |
| O Caliph, fiercely torn, bewailed their young years' blight; | 12 | ·/˘/˘······· |
| With stabs and kisses fouled, all their yet quivering charms, | 12 | ···/˘····/˘· |
| At our fleet coursers' heels were dragged in mocking flight. | 12 | ·/·······/˘· |
| Lo! where the city lies mantled in pall of death; | 12 | ···/˘·/˘···· |
| Lo! where thy mighty hand hath passed, all things must bend! | 12 | ···/˘······· |
| Priests prayed, the sword estopped blaspheming breath, | 12 | ··˘····˘···· |
| Vainly their cheating book for shield did they extend. | 12 | /˘·/˘·····˘/ |
| Some infants yet survived, and the unsated steel | 12 | ·/˘·˘/······ |
| Still drinks the life-blood of each whelp of Christian-kind, | 12 | ·········/˘· |
| To kiss thy sandall'd foot, O King, thy people kneel, | 12 | ·········/˘· |
| And golden circlets to thy victor-ankle bind. | 12 | ·/˘····/˘/˘· |
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.