The time draws near the birth of Christ
The time draws near the birth of Christ;The moon is hid, the night is still;A single church below the hillIs pealing, folded in the mist.
A single peal of bells below,That wakens at this hour of restA single murmur in the breast,That these are not the bells I know.
Like strangers’ voices here they sound,In lands where not a memory strays,Nor landmark breathes of other days,But all is new unhallow’d ground.
Words in this poem
- peal v. i.
- To appeal. Spencer.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The time draws near the birth of Christ is in the public domain. This text is taken from In memoriam, Project Gutenberg ebook #70950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alfred Tennyson, The time draws near the birth of Christ, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-102.html, id L18462.
Form and metre
The time draws near the birth of Christ is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 17% 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 ABBA christA · stillB · hillB · mistA
- 2 ABBA belowA · restB · breastB · knowA
- 3 ABBA soundA · straysB · daysB · groundA
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 time draws near the birth of Christ; | 8 | ········ |
| The moon is hid, the night is still; | 8 | ········ |
| A single church below the hill | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Is pealing, folded in the mist. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| A single peal of bells below, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| That wakens at this hour of rest | 8 | ·/˘··/·· |
| A single murmur in the breast, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| That these are not the bells I know. | 8 | ········ |
| Like strangers’ voices here they sound, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| In lands where not a memory strays, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Nor landmark breathes of other days, | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| But all is new unhallow’d ground. | 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.