The Warrior
He wrought in poverty, the dull grey days,But with the night his little lamp-lit roomWas bright with battle flame, or through a hazeOf smoke that stung his eyes he heard the boomOf Bluecher's guns; he shared Almeida's scars,And from the close-packed deck, about to die,Looked up and saw the "Birkenhead"'s tall sparsWeave wavering lines across the Southern sky:
Or in the stifling 'tween decks, row on row,At Aboukir, saw how the dead men lay;Charged with the fiercest in Busaco's strife,Brave dreams are his -- the flick'ring lamp burns low --Yet couraged for the battles of the dayHe goes to stand full face to face with life.
Words in this poem
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Warrior 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, The Warrior, in In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mccrae-flanders/the-warrior.html, id L17033.
Form and metre
The Warrior is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 36% 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 daysA · roomB · hazeA · boomB · scarsC · dieD · sparsC · skyD
- 2 ABCABC rowA · layB · strifeC · lowA · dayB · lifeC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| He wrought in poverty, the dull grey days, | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| But with the night his little lamp-lit room | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Was bright with battle flame, or through a haze | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Of smoke that stung his eyes he heard the boom | 10 | ·········· |
| Of Bluecher's guns; he shared Almeida's scars, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| And from the close-packed deck, about to die, | 10 | ·········· |
| Looked up and saw the "Birkenhead"'s tall spars | 11 | ··········· |
| Weave wavering lines across the Southern sky: | 10 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘· |
| Or in the stifling 'tween decks, row on row, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| At Aboukir, saw how the dead men lay; | 10 | ·········· |
| Charged with the fiercest in Busaco's strife, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Brave dreams are his -- the flick'ring lamp burns low -- | 10 | ·········· |
| Yet couraged for the battles of the day | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| He goes to stand full face to face with life. | 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.