Behind the Lines
The wind of evening cried along the darkening trees,Along the darkening trees, heavy with ancient pain,Heavy with ancient pain from faded centuries,From faded centuries.... O foolish thought and vain!
O foolish thought and vain to think the wind could know,To think the wind could know the griefs of men who died,The griefs of men who died and mouldered long ago:"And mouldered long ago," the wind of evening cried.
About this text
Behind the Lines is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems - First Series, Project Gutenberg ebook #37860; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Collings Squire, Behind the Lines, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/behind-the-lines.html, id L23187.
Form and metre
Behind the Lines is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is alexandrines, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in alexandrines.
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 treesA · painB · centuriesA · vainB
- 2 ABAB knowA · diedB · agoA · criedB
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 alexandrines. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The wind of evening cried along the darkening trees, | 12 | ···/˘·˘/·/˘· |
| Along the darkening trees, heavy with ancient pain, | 12 | ˘/·/˘·/˘·/˘· |
| Heavy with ancient pain from faded centuries, | 12 | /˘·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| From faded centuries.... O foolish thought and vain! | 12 | ·/˘/˘˘·/˘··· |
| O foolish thought and vain to think the wind could know, | 12 | ·/˘········· |
| To think the wind could know the griefs of men who died, | 12 | ············ |
| The griefs of men who died and mouldered long ago: | 12 | ·······/˘·˘/ |
| "And mouldered long ago," the wind of evening cried. | 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.