Going Over
A girl's voice in the night troubled my heart.Across the roar of the guns, the crash of the shells,Low and soft as a sigh, clearly I heard it.
Where was the broken parapet, crumbling about me?Where my shadowy comrades, crouching expectant?A girl's voice in the dark troubled my heart.
A dream was the ooze of the trench, the wet clay slipping,A dream the sudden out-flare of the wide-flung Verys.I saw but a garden of lilacs, a-flower in the dusk.
What was the sergeant saying?--I passed it along.--Did I pass it along? I was breathing the breath of the lilacs.For a girl's voice in the night troubled my heart.
Over! How the mud sucks! Vomits red the barrage.But I am far off in the hush of a garden of lilacs.For a girl's voice in the night troubled my heart.Tender and soft as a sigh, clearly I heard it.
Words in this poem
- barrage n.
- An artificial bar or obstruction placed in a river or water course to increase the depth of water; as, the barrages of the Nile. [F., fr. barrer to bar, from barre bar.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Going Over is in the public domain. This text is taken from New Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59897; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Charles G. D. Roberts, Going Over, in New Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59897, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/roberts-new-poems/going-over.html, id L11140.
Form and metre
Going Over is 16 lines in 5 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 83% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.2 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A girl's voice in the night troubled my heart. | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| Across the roar of the guns, the crash of the shells, | 12 | ˘/·········· |
| Low and soft as a sigh, clearly I heard it. | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| Where was the broken parapet, crumbling about me? | 13 | ···/˘/˘·/˘··· |
| Where my shadowy comrades, crouching expectant? | 11 | ··/˘/·/˘˘/˘ |
| A girl's voice in the dark troubled my heart. | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| A dream was the ooze of the trench, the wet clay slipping, | 13 | ···········/˘ |
| A dream the sudden out-flare of the wide-flung Verys. | 13 | ···/˘······/˘ |
| I saw but a garden of lilacs, a-flower in the dusk. | 14 | ····/˘·/··/··· |
| What was the sergeant saying?--I passed it along.-- | 12 | ···/˘/˘···˘/ |
| Did I pass it along? I was breathing the breath of the lilacs. | 16 | ····˘/··/˘····/· |
| For a girl's voice in the night troubled my heart. | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Over! How the mud sucks! Vomits red the barrage. | 11 | ·····/˘··˘/ |
| But I am far off in the hush of a garden of lilacs. | 15 | ··········/˘·/· |
| For a girl's voice in the night troubled my heart. | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Tender and soft as a sigh, clearly I heard it. | 12 | /˘·····/˘··· |
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.