Quebec and Montreal
Peace is our portion. Yet a whisper rose,Foolish and causeless, half in jest, half hate.Now wake we and remember mighty blows,And, fearing no man, wait!
Words in this poem
- causeless a.
- 1. Self-originating; uncreated.
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Quebec and Montreal 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, Quebec and Montreal, in Verses 1889–1896 (1889–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #323, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-verses/quebec-and-montreal.html, id L16799.
Form and metre
Quebec and Montreal is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 9.0 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 roseA · hateB · blowsA · waitB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Peace is our portion. Yet a whisper rose, | 10 | ··//˘··/˘· |
| Foolish and causeless, half in jest, half hate. | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Now wake we and remember mighty blows, | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘· |
| And, fearing no man, wait! | 6 | ·/˘··· |
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.