Heaven Is Not Reached at a Single Bound (A Fragment.)
“We build the ladder by which we climb” is a line worthy of any poet.
Heaven is not reached at a single bound,But we build the ladder by which we riseFrom the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,And we mount to its summit round by round.
I count this thing to be grandly true:That a noble deed is a step toward God,--Lifting the soul from the common clodTo a purer air and a broader view.
Words in this poem
- grandly adv.
- In a grand manner.
- clod n.
- A lump or mass, especially of earth, turf, or clay. [OE. clodde, latter form of clot. See Clot.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Heaven Is Not Reached at a Single Bound (A Fragment.) is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Every Child Should Know The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library, Project Gutenberg ebook #16436; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mary E. Burt, Heaven Is Not Reached at a Single Bound (A Fragment.), in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/heaven-is-not-reached-at-a-single-bound-a-fragment.html, id L25229.
Form and metre
Heaven Is Not Reached at a Single Bound (A Fragment.) is 9 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%).
See other poems in trochaic 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.
- 2 ABBA boundA · riseB · skiesB · roundA
- 3 ABBA trueA · godB · clodB · viewA
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 trochaic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| “We build the ladder by which we climb” is a line worthy of any poet. | 19 | ···/˘·······/˘·/˘/˘ |
| Heaven is not reached at a single bound, | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| But we build the ladder by which we rise | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, | 10 | ··/˘···/˘· |
| And we mount to its summit round by round. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| I count this thing to be grandly true: | 9 | ······/˘· |
| That a noble deed is a step toward God,-- | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| Lifting the soul from the common clod | 9 | /˘····/˘· |
| To a purer air and a broader view. | 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.