The Rout of the White Hussars
In the daytime, when she moved about me,In the night, when she was sleeping at my side,--I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence.Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her--Would God that she or I had died!
About this text
The Rout of the White Hussars is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, The Rout of the White Hussars, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/the-rout-of-the-white-hussars.html, id L20299.
Form and metre
The Rout of the White Hussars is 5 lines in a single stanza.
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--A me · sideA · presence · her · diedA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| In the daytime, when she moved about me, | 10 | ··/······· |
| In the night, when she was sleeping at my side,-- | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence. | 12 | ··/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her-- | 12 | ············ |
| Would God that she or I had died! | 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.