My Comrade
I never build a song by night or day,Of breaking ocean or of blowing whin,But in some wondrous unexpected way,Like light upon a road, my Love comes in.
And when I go at night upon the hill,My heart is lifted on mysterious wings:My Love is there to strengthen and to still,For she can take away the dread of things.
Words in this poem
- wondrous adv.
- In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully. [OE. wonders, adv. (later also adj.). See Wonder, n., and cf. -wards.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
My Comrade is in the public domain. This text is taken from The man with the hoe, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #67012; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Markham, My Comrade, in The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #67012, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-man-with-hoe/my-comrade.html, id L24770.
Form and metre
My Comrade is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See 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 ABAB dayA · whinB · wayA · inB
- 2 ABAB hillA · wingsB · stillA · thingsB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I never build a song by night or day, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Of breaking ocean or of blowing whin, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| But in some wondrous unexpected way, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| Like light upon a road, my Love comes in. | 10 | ·········· |
| And when I go at night upon the hill, | 10 | ·········· |
| My heart is lifted on mysterious wings: | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| My Love is there to strengthen and to still, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| For she can take away the dread of things. | 10 | ····˘/···· |
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.