Halifax
Into the mist my guardian prows put forth,Behind the mist my virgin ramparts lie,The Warden of the Honour of the North,Sleepless and veiled am I!
Words in this poem
- honour n.
- Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. [OE. honor, honour, onour, onur, OF. honor, onor, honur, onur, honour, onour, F. honneur, fr. L. honor, honos.]
- sleepless a.
- Having no sleep; wakeful.
- veiled a.
- Covered by, or as by, a veil; hidden.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Halifax is in the public domain. This text is taken from Verses 1889-1896, Project Gutenberg ebook #323; 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, Halifax, in Verses 1889–1896 (1889–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #323, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-verses/halifax.html, id L16798.
Form and metre
Halifax is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 9.2 syllables.
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 forthA · lieB · northA · iB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Into the mist my guardian prows put forth, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Behind the mist my virgin ramparts lie, | 10 | ·····/˘/·· |
| The Warden of the Honour of the North, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Sleepless and veiled am I! | 7 | /˘··˘·· |
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.