England
Praise thou with praise unendingThe Master of the Wine;To all their portions sendingHimself he mingled thine:
The sea-born flush of morning,The sea-born hush of night,The East wind comfort scorning,And the North wind driving right:
The world for gain and giving,The game for man and boy,The life that joys in living,The faith that lives in joy.
About this text
England is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems: New and Old, Project Gutenberg ebook #24405; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry John Newbolt, England, in Poems: New and Old (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24405, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/newbolt-poems/england.html, id L11428.
Form and metre
England is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.6 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
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 unendingA · wineB · sendingA · thineB
- 2 ABAB morningA · nightB · scorningA · rightB
- 3 ABAB givingA · boyB · livingA · joyB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Praise thou with praise unending | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| The Master of the Wine; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| To all their portions sending | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Himself he mingled thine: | 6 | ˘/·/˘· |
| The sea-born flush of morning, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| The sea-born hush of night, | 6 | ······ |
| The East wind comfort scorning, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| And the North wind driving right: | 7 | ····/˘· |
| The world for gain and giving, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| The game for man and boy, | 6 | ······ |
| The life that joys in living, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| The faith that lives in joy. | 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.