Arma Virumque
Ah! the keen, blue-bladed sword,In the strong hands of thy lordLiving, vibrating, inspired!Thou hast drunk the draught desired,Blood of battle: now, restoredTo the shrouding sheath, thou hatest,For the trump of war thou waitest.
But thy bright steel grows not dim,While thou hangest yet by him,In whose hands thou hast thy life.Fear not! Thou shalt swell more strife,Ere death come: last foe most grim!And shalt lie, that onset over,Close beside thy lord and lover.
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- shrouding n.
- The shrouds. See Shroud, n., 7.
- shalt
- 2d per. sing. of Shall.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Arma Virumque is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #66520; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lionel Johnson, Arma Virumque, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66520, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-lionel-poems/arma-virumque.html, id L12540.
Form and metre
Arma Virumque is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
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 AABBACC swordA · lordA · inspiredB · desiredB · restoredA · hatestC · waitestC
- 2 AABBA-- dimA · himA · lifeB · strifeB · grimA · over · lover
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Ah! the keen, blue-bladed sword, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| In the strong hands of thy lord | 7 | ······· |
| Living, vibrating, inspired! | 8 | /˘/˘˘˘/˘ |
| Thou hast drunk the draught desired, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Blood of battle: now, restored | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| To the shrouding sheath, thou hatest, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| For the trump of war thou waitest. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| But thy bright steel grows not dim, | 7 | ······· |
| While thou hangest yet by him, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| In whose hands thou hast thy life. | 7 | ······· |
| Fear not! Thou shalt swell more strife, | 7 | ······· |
| Ere death come: last foe most grim! | 7 | ······· |
| And shalt lie, that onset over, | 8 | ····/··· |
| Close beside thy lord and lover. | 8 | ·˘/···/˘ |
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.