Tribute to the Vanquished
Oh! let me weep that race whose day is past,By exile given, by exile claimed once more,Thrice swept away upon that fatal blast.Whate'er its blame, escort we to our shoreThese relics of the monarchy of yore;And to th' outmarching oriflamme be paidWar's honors by the flag on Fleurus' field displayed!
Words in this poem
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
- oriflamme n.
- The ancient royal standard of France. [F. oriflamme, OF. oriflambe, LL. auriflamma; L. aurum gold + flamma flame; cf. L. flammula a little banner. So called because it was a flag of red silk, split i]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Tribute to the Vanquished 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, Tribute to the Vanquished, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/tribute-to-the-vanquished.html, id L26747.
Form and metre
Tribute to the Vanquished is 7 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 ABABBCC pastA · moreB · blastA · shoreB · yoreB · paidC · displayedC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oh! let me weep that race whose day is past, | 10 | ·········· |
| By exile given, by exile claimed once more, | 10 | ·/·/·/···· |
| Thrice swept away upon that fatal blast. | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Whate'er its blame, escort we to our shore | 11 | ˘˘/··˘/··/· |
| These relics of the monarchy of yore; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘·· |
| And to th' outmarching oriflamme be paid | 10 | ·········· |
| War's honors by the flag on Fleurus' field displayed! | 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.