Hope
We speak with the lip, and we dream in the soul,Of some better and fairer day;And our days, the meanwhile, to that golden goalAre gliding and sliding away.Now the world becomes old, now again it is young,But "The better" 's forever the word on the tongue.
At the threshold of life hope leads us in--Hope plays round the mirthful boy;Though the best of its charms may with youth begin,Yet for age it reserves its toy.
Words in this poem
- meanwhile n.
- The intervening time; as, in the meantime (or mean time).
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hope is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Schiller — Third period, Project Gutenberg ebook #6796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Friedrich Schiller, Hope, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/hope.html, id L21861.
Form and metre
Hope is 10 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%).
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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 ABABCC soulA · dayB · goalA · awayB · youngC · tongueC
- 2 ABAB inA · boyB · beginA · toyB
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| We speak with the lip, and we dream in the soul, | 11 | ··········· |
| Of some better and fairer day; | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| And our days, the meanwhile, to that golden goal | 11 | ·/··/···/˘· |
| Are gliding and sliding away. | 8 | ·/˘·/˘˘/ |
| Now the world becomes old, now again it is young, | 12 | ···˘/··˘/··· |
| But "The better" 's forever the word on the tongue. | 13 | ··/˘·˘/˘····· |
| At the threshold of life hope leads us in-- | 10 | ··/······· |
| Hope plays round the mirthful boy; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Though the best of its charms may with youth begin, | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| Yet for age it reserves its toy. | 8 | ····˘/·· |
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.