Peace
My soul, there is a countryFar beyond the stars,Where stands a wingèd sentryAll skilful in the wars:There, above noise and danger,Sweet Peace sits crown’d with smiles,And One born in a mangerCommands the beauteous files.He is thy gracious Friend,And--O my soul, awake!--Did in pure love descendTo die here for thy sake.If thou canst get but thither,There grows the flower of Peace,The Rose that cannot wither,Thy fortress, and thy ease.Leave then thy foolish ranges;For none can thee secureBut One who never changes--Thy God, thy life, thy cure.
Words in this poem
- manger n.
- A trough or open box in which fodder is placed for horses or cattle to eat. [F. mangeoire, fr. manger to eat, fr. L. manducare, fr. mandere to chew. Cf. Mandible, Manducate.]
- beauteous a.
- Full of beauty; beautiful; very handsome. [Mostly poetic] -- Beau"te*ous*ly, adv. --
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Peace is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; 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 Vaughan, Peace, in Poems (1621–1695), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-henry-vaughan/peace.html, id L16111.
Form and metre
Peace is 20 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.3 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ----ABABCDCDE-EFFGFG country · stars · sentry · wars · dangerA · smilesB · mangerA · filesB · friendC · awakeD · descendC · sakeD · thitherE · peace · witherE · easeF · rangesF · secureG · changesF · cureG
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My soul, there is a country | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Far beyond the stars, | 5 | ····· |
| Where stands a wingèd sentry | 6 | ····/˘ |
| All skilful in the wars: | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| There, above noise and danger, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Sweet Peace sits crown’d with smiles, | 6 | ······ |
| And One born in a manger | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Commands the beauteous files. | 7 | ˘/·/˘˘· |
| He is thy gracious Friend, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And--O my soul, awake!-- | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Did in pure love descend | 6 | ····˘/ |
| To die here for thy sake. | 6 | ······ |
| If thou canst get but thither, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| There grows the flower of Peace, | 6 | ···/·· |
| The Rose that cannot wither, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Thy fortress, and thy ease. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Leave then thy foolish ranges; | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| For none can thee secure | 6 | ····˘/ |
| But One who never changes-- | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Thy God, thy life, thy cure. | 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.