Love and Hope
Bless love and hope. Full many a withered yearWhirled past us, eddying to its chill doomsday;And clasped together where the blown leaves lay,We long have knelt and wept full many a tear.Yet lo! one hour at last, the Spring's compeer,Flutes softly to us from some green byeway:*Those years, those tears are dead, but only they:--Bless love and hope, true soul; for we are here.
Cling heart to heart; nor of this hour demandWhether in very truth, when we are dead,Our hearts shall wake to know Love's golden headSole sunshine of the imperishable land;Or but discern, through night's unfeatured scope,Scorn-fired at length the illusive eyes of Hope.
Words in this poem
- doomsday n.
- A day of sentence or condemnation; day of death. [AS. d. See Doom, and Day.]
- compeer
- An equal, as in rank, age, prowess, etc.; a companion; a comrade; a mate. [OE. comper, through French fr. L. compar; com- + par equal. See Peer an equal, and cf. 1st Compare.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
- unfeatured a.
- Wanting regular features; deformed.
- illusive a.
- Deceiving by false show; deceitful; deceptive; false; illusory; unreal. [See Illude.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love and Hope is in the public domain. This text is taken from The House of Life, Project Gutenberg ebook #3692; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Love and Hope, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/love-and-hope.html, id L20963.
Form and metre
Love and Hope is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
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 ABBAABBA yearA · doomsdayB · layB · tearA · compeerA · byewayB · theyB · hereA
- 2 ABBACC demandA · deadB · headB · landA · scopeC · hopeC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Bless love and hope. Full many a withered year | 10 | ·····/·/˘· |
| Whirled past us, eddying to its chill doomsday; | 10 | ···/˘···/· |
| And clasped together where the blown leaves lay, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| We long have knelt and wept full many a tear. | 10 | ·······/·· |
| Yet lo! one hour at last, the Spring's compeer, | 10 | ···/····˘/ |
| Flutes softly to us from some green byeway:* | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Those years, those tears are dead, but only they:-- | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Bless love and hope, true soul; for we are here. | 10 | ·········· |
| Cling heart to heart; nor of this hour demand | 10 | ·······/˘/ |
| Whether in very truth, when we are dead, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Our hearts shall wake to know Love's golden head | 10 | /······/˘· |
| Sole sunshine of the imperishable land; | 11 | ·/···˘/˘˘˘· |
| Or but discern, through night's unfeatured scope, | 10 | ··˘/··˘/˘· |
| Scorn-fired at length the illusive eyes of Hope. | 11 | ·/···˘/˘··· |
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.