Armies in the Fire
The lamps now glitter down the street;Faintly sound the falling feet;And the blue even slowly fallsAbout the garden trees and walls.
Now in the falling of the gloomThe red fire paints the empty room:And warmly on the roof it looks,And flickers on the back of books.
Armies march by tower and spireOf cities blazing, in the fire;--Till as I gaze with staring eyes,The armies fade, the lustre dies.
Then once again the glow returns;Again the phantom city burns;And down the red-hot valley, lo!The phantom armies marching go!
Blinking embers, tell me trueWhere are those armies marching to,And what the burning city isThat crumbles in your furnaces!
Words in this poem
- warmly adv.
- In a warm manner; ardently.
- lustre n.
- A period of five years; a lustrum. [L. lustrum: cf. F. lustre.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Armies in the Fire is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Child's Garden of Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #136; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Louis Stevenson, Armies in the Fire, in A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #136, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevenson-childs-garden/armies-in-the-fire.html, id L07220.
Form and metre
Armies in the Fire is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 AABB streetA · feetA · fallsB · wallsB
- 2 AABB gloomA · roomA · looksB · booksB
- 3 AABB spireA · fireA · eyesB · diesB
- 4 AABB returnsA · burnsA · loB · goB
- 5 AABB trueA · toA · isB · furnacesB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The lamps now glitter down the street; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Faintly sound the falling feet; | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| And the blue even slowly falls | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| About the garden trees and walls. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Now in the falling of the gloom | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The red fire paints the empty room: | 8 | ··/··/˘· |
| And warmly on the roof it looks, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And flickers on the back of books. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Armies march by tower and spire | 8 | /˘··/˘·· |
| Of cities blazing, in the fire;-- | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| Till as I gaze with staring eyes, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The armies fade, the lustre dies. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Then once again the glow returns; | 8 | ··˘/··˘/ |
| Again the phantom city burns; | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| And down the red-hot valley, lo! | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The phantom armies marching go! | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Blinking embers, tell me true | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Where are those armies marching to, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And what the burning city is | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| That crumbles in your furnaces! | 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.