Mine Host
There stands a hostel by a travelled way;Life is the road and Death the worthy host;Each guest he greets, nor ever lacks to say,"How have ye fared?" They answer him, the most,"This lodging place is other than we sought;We had intended farther, but the gloomCame on apace, and found us ere we thought:Yet will we lodge. Thou hast abundant room."
Within sit haggard men that speak no word,No fire gleams their cheerful welcome shed;No voice of fellowship or strife is heardBut silence of a multitude of dead."Naught can I offer ye," quoth Death, "but rest!"And to his chamber leads each tired guest.
Words in this poem
- apace adv.
- With a quick pace; quick; fast; speedily. [Pref. a- + pace. OE. a pas at a walk, in which a is the article. See Pace.]
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- haggard a.
- Wild or intractable; disposed to break away from duty; untamed; as, a haggard or refractory hawk. Shak [F. hagard; of German origin, and prop. meaning, of the hegde or woods, wild, untamed. See Hedge, 1st Haw, and -ard.]
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- quoth v. t.
- Said; spoke; uttered; -- used only in the first and third persons in the past tenses, and always followed by its nominative, the word or words said being the object; as, quoth I. quoth he. [AS.cweedhan, imp cwæedh, pl. cwædon; akin to OS. queedhan, OHG. quethan, quedan, Icel. kveedha, Goth. qiþan. sq. root22. Cf. Bequeath.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mine Host is in the public domain. This text is taken from In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #353; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John McCrae, Mine Host, in In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mccrae-flanders/mine-host.html, id L17047.
Form and metre
Mine Host is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 14% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABABCDCD wayA · hostB · sayA · mostB · soughtC · gloomD · thoughtC · roomD
- 2 ABABCC wordA · shedB · heardA · deadB · restC · guestC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There stands a hostel by a travelled way; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Life is the road and Death the worthy host; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Each guest he greets, nor ever lacks to say, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| "How have ye fared?" They answer him, the most, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| "This lodging place is other than we sought; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| We had intended farther, but the gloom | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| Came on apace, and found us ere we thought: | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Yet will we lodge. Thou hast abundant room." | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Within sit haggard men that speak no word, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| No fire gleams their cheerful welcome shed; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| No voice of fellowship or strife is heard | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But silence of a multitude of dead. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| "Naught can I offer ye," quoth Death, "but rest!" | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And to his chamber leads each tired guest. | 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.