The Hill Maples
Here on a hill of the occident stand we shoulder to shoulder,Comrades tried and true through a mighty swath of the years!Spring harps glad laughter through us, and ministrant rains of the autumnSing us again the songs of ancient dolor and tears.
The glory of sunrise smites on our fair, free brows upliftedWhen the silver-kirtled day steps over the twilight's bars;At evening we look adown into valleys hearted with sunset,And we whisper old lore together under the smouldering stars.
Crescent moons of the summer gleam through our swaying branches,Knee-deep in fern we stand while the days of the sun-time go;And the winds of winter love us—the keen, gay winds of the winter,Coming to our gray arms from over the plains of snow.
Down in the valleys beneath us is wooing and winning and wedding,Down in the long, dim valleys earth-children wail and weep;But here on these free hills we grow and are strong and flourish,Comrades shoulder to shoulder our watch of the years to keep.
Words in this poem
- ministrant a.
- Performing service as a minister; attendant on service; acting under command; subordinate. [L. ministrans, -antis, of ministrare to minister.]
- dolor n.
- Pain; grief; distress; anguish. [OE. dolor, dolur, dolour, F. douleur, L. dolor, fr. dolere. See 1st Dole.]
- adown adv.
- From a higher to a lower situation; downward; down, to or on the ground. [OE. adun, adoun, adune. AS. of dune off the hill. See Down.]
- smouldering a.
- Being in a state of suppressed activity; quiet but not dead.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Hill Maples is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Watchman and Other Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917; Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1916), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: L. M. Montgomery, The Hill Maples, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/the-hill-maples.html, id L29394.
Form and metre
The Hill Maples is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 -A-A shoulder · yearsA · autumn · tearsA
- 2 -A-A uplifted · barsA · sunset · starsA
- 3 -A-A branches · goA · winter · snowA
- 4 -A-A wedding · weepA · flourish · keepA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Here on a hill of the occident stand we shoulder to shoulder, | 16 | ······/˘···/˘·/˘ |
| Comrades tried and true through a mighty swath of the years! | 13 | /······/˘···· |
| Spring harps glad laughter through us, and ministrant rains of the autumn | 16 | ···/˘···/˘˘···/˘ |
| Sing us again the songs of ancient dolor and tears. | 13 | ··˘/···/˘/˘·· |
| The glory of sunrise smites on our fair, free brows uplifted | 14 | ·/˘·/···/···/˘ |
| When the silver-kirtled day steps over the twilight's bars; | 13 | ··/˘/˘····/·· |
| At evening we look adown into valleys hearted with sunset, | 16 | ·/˘··˘/··/˘/˘·/· |
| And we whisper old lore together under the smouldering stars. | 16 | ··/˘··˘/˘······· |
| Crescent moons of the summer gleam through our swaying branches, | 14 | /˘···/˘··//˘/˘ |
| Knee-deep in fern we stand while the days of the sun-time go; | 14 | ·············· |
| And the winds of winter love us—the keen, gay winds of the winter, | 16 | ····/˘········/˘ |
| Coming to our gray arms from over the plains of snow. | 12 | /˘·/········ |
| Down in the valleys beneath us is wooing and winning and wedding, | 17 | ···/˘····/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| Down in the long, dim valleys earth-children wail and weep; | 13 | ·····/˘·/˘··· |
| But here on these free hills we grow and are strong and flourish, | 14 | ············/˘ |
| Comrades shoulder to shoulder our watch of the years to keep. | 14 | /·/˘·/˘/······ |
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.