Midway
Turn back, my Soul, no longer setThy peace upon the years to comeTurn back, the land of thy regretHolds nothing doubtful, nothing dumb.
There are the voices, there the scenesThat make thy life in living truthA tale of heroes and of queens,Fairer than all the hopes of youth.
About this text
Midway 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, Midway, in Poems: New and Old (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24405, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/newbolt-poems/midway.html, id L11457.
Form and metre
Midway is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 62% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 setA · comeB · regretA · dumbB
- 2 ABAB scenesA · truthB · queensA · youthB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Turn back, my Soul, no longer set | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Thy peace upon the years to come | 8 | ········ |
| Turn back, the land of thy regret | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Holds nothing doubtful, nothing dumb. | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| There are the voices, there the scenes | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That make thy life in living truth | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| A tale of heroes and of queens, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Fairer than all the hopes of youth. | 8 | /˘······ |
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.