The Stronghold
Quieter than any twilightShed over earth's last deserts,Quiet and vast and shadowlessIs that unfounded keep,Higher than the roof of the night's high chamberDeep as the shaft of sleep.
And solitude will not cry there,Melancholy will not brood there,Hatred, with its sharp corroding pain,And fear will not come there at all:Never will a tear or a heart-ache enterOver that enchanted wall.But, O, if you find that castle,
Draw back your foot from the gateway,Let not its peace invite you,Let not its offerings tempt you.For faded and decayed like a garment,Love to a dust will have fallen,And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow,And hope will have gone with pain;And of all the throbbing heart's high courageNothing will remain.
Words in this poem
- quieter n.
- One who, or that which, quiets.
- shadowless a.
- Having no shadow.
- unfounded a.
- Not founded; not built or established.
- ache n.
- A name given to several species of plants; as, smallage, wild celery, parsley. Holland. [F. ache, L. apium parsley.]
- enchanted a.
- Under the power of enchantment; possessed or exercised by enchanters; as, an enchanted castle.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Stronghold 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, The Stronghold, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/the-stronghold.html, id L23189.
Form and metre
The Stronghold is 22 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%).
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
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 ---A-A twilight · deserts · shadowless · keepA · chamber · sleepA
- 2 AA-B-BB thereA · thereA · pain · allB · enter · wallB · castleB
- 3 -AA-B-B-B gateway · youA · youA · garment · fallenB · sorrow · painB · courage · remainB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Quieter than any twilight | 8 | /˘˘·/˘/· |
| Shed over earth's last deserts, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Quiet and vast and shadowless | 8 | /˘···/˘˘ |
| Is that unfounded keep, | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| Higher than the roof of the night's high chamber | 10 | /·······/˘ |
| Deep as the shaft of sleep. | 6 | ······ |
| And solitude will not cry there, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Melancholy will not brood there, | 8 | /˘·˘···· |
| Hatred, with its sharp corroding pain, | 9 | /˘···˘/˘· |
| And fear will not come there at all: | 8 | ········ |
| Never will a tear or a heart-ache enter | 10 | /·······/˘ |
| Over that enchanted wall. | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| But, O, if you find that castle, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Draw back your foot from the gateway, | 8 | ······/· |
| Let not its peace invite you, | 7 | ····˘/· |
| Let not its offerings tempt you. | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| For faded and decayed like a garment, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/··/˘ |
| Love to a dust will have fallen, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| And hope will have gone with pain; | 7 | ······· |
| And of all the throbbing heart's high courage | 10 | ····/˘··/˘ |
| Nothing will remain. | 5 | /˘·˘/ |
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.