The Bugle Song
The splendour falls on castle wallsAnd snowy summits old in story:The long light shakes across the lakesAnd the wild cataract leaps in glory.Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,And thinner, clearer, farther going!O sweet and far from cliff and scarThe horns of Elfland faintly blowing!Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O love, they die in yon rich sky,They faint on hill or field or river:Our echoes roll from soul to soul,And grow forever and forever.Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
Words in this poem
- splendour n.
- Great brightness; brilliant luster; brilliancy; as, the splendor ot the sun. B. Jonson. [L. fr. splendere to shine: cf. F. splendeur.]
- snowy a.
- White like snow.
- clearer n.
- One who, or that which, clears.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Bugle Song 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, The Bugle Song, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/the-bugle-song.html, id L25205.
Form and metre
The Bugle Song is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
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-ABB walls · storyA · lakes · gloryA · flyingB · dyingB
- 2 -A-ABB clear · goingA · scar · blowingA · replyingB · dyingB
- 3 ----AA sky · river · soul · forever · flyingA · dyingA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The splendour falls on castle walls | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And snowy summits old in story: | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| The long light shakes across the lakes | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| And the wild cataract leaps in glory. | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, | 11 | ·/˘····/˘/˘ |
| Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. | 13 | ·/˘/˘/˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, | 8 | ········ |
| And thinner, clearer, farther going! | 9 | ·/˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| O sweet and far from cliff and scar | 8 | ········ |
| The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! | 9 | ···/˘/˘/˘ |
| Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: | 11 | ·····/˘·˘/˘ |
| Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. | 13 | ·/˘/˘/˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| O love, they die in yon rich sky, | 8 | ········ |
| They faint on hill or field or river: | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Our echoes roll from soul to soul, | 8 | //˘····· |
| And grow forever and forever. | 9 | ··˘/˘·˘/˘ |
| Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, | 11 | ·/˘····/˘/˘ |
| And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. | 13 | ·/˘/˘/˘/˘/˘/˘ |
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.