Remembrance
There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide,And we passed away from ourselves, forgetting allThe immortal moods that faded, the god who died,Hastening away to the King on a distant call.
There were ruby dews were shed when the heart was riven,And passionate pleading and prayers to the dead we had wronged;And we passed away, unremembering and unforgiven,Hastening away to the King for the peace we longed.
Love unremembered and heart-ache we left behind,We forsook them, unheeding, hastening away in our flight;We knew the hearts we had wronged of old we would findWhen we came to the fold of the King for rest in the night.
About this text
Remembrance is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Divine Vision, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #36913; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George William Russell, Remembrance, in The Divine Vision and Other Poems (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36913, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/russell-divine-vision/remembrance.html, id L11522.
Form and metre
Remembrance is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 71%). 79% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.7 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic heptameter.
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 ABAB tideA · allB · diedA · callB
- 2 ABAB rivenA · wrongedB · unforgivenA · longedB
- 3 ABAB behindA · flightB · findA · nightB
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 heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide, | 11 | ··//˘/····· |
| And we passed away from ourselves, forgetting all | 12 | ···˘/·˘/˘/˘· |
| The immortal moods that faded, the god who died, | 12 | ·˘/˘··/˘···· |
| Hastening away to the King on a distant call. | 12 | /˘˘/·····/˘· |
| There were ruby dews were shed when the heart was riven, | 13 | ··/˘·······/˘ |
| And passionate pleading and prayers to the dead we had wronged; | 13 | ·/˘/˘········ |
| And we passed away, unremembering and unforgiven, | 15 | ···˘/·······˘/˘ |
| Hastening away to the King for the peace we longed. | 12 | /˘˘/········ |
| Love unremembered and heart-ache we left behind, | 12 | ············ |
| We forsook them, unheeding, hastening away in our flight; | 14 | ·˘/····/˘˘/·/· |
| We knew the hearts we had wronged of old we would find | 12 | ············ |
| When we came to the fold of the King for rest in the night. | 14 | ·············· |
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.