Yet if some voice that man could trust
Yet if some voice that man could trustShould murmur from the narrow house:The cheeks drop in; the body bows;Man dies: nor is there hope in dust:
Might I not say, yet even here,But for one hour, O Love, I striveTo keep so sweet a thing alive?But I should turn mine ears and hear
The moanings of the homeless sea,The sound of streams that swift or slowDraw down Æonian hills, and sowThe dust of continents to be;
And Love would answer with a sigh,‘The sound of that forgetful shoreWill change my sweetness more and more,Half dead to know that I shall die.’
O me! what profits it to putAn idle case? If Death were seenAt first as Death, Love had not been,Or been in narrowest working shut,
Mere fellowship of sluggish moods,Or in his coarsest Satyr-shapeHad bruised the herb and crush’d the grape,And bask’d and batten’d in the woods.
Words in this poem
- homeless a.
- Destitute of a home. [AS.hamleas.]
- forgetful a.
- Apt to forget; easily losing remembrance; as, a forgetful man should use helps to strengthen his memory.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Yet if some voice that man could trust 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, Yet if some voice that man could trust, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-35.html, id L18395.
Form and metre
Yet if some voice that man could trust is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 38% 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 trustA · houseB · bowsB · dustA
- 2 ABBA hereA · striveB · aliveB · hearA
- 3 ABBA seaA · slowB · sowB · beA
- 4 ABBA sighA · shoreB · moreB · dieA
- 5 ABBA putA · seenB · beenB · shutA
- 6 ABBA moodsA · shapeB · grapeB · woodsA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Yet if some voice that man could trust | 8 | ········ |
| Should murmur from the narrow house: | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The cheeks drop in; the body bows; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Man dies: nor is there hope in dust: | 8 | ········ |
| Might I not say, yet even here, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| But for one hour, O Love, I strive | 8 | ···/···· |
| To keep so sweet a thing alive? | 8 | ······˘/ |
| But I should turn mine ears and hear | 8 | ········ |
| The moanings of the homeless sea, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The sound of streams that swift or slow | 8 | ········ |
| Draw down Æonian hills, and sow | 7 | ······· |
| The dust of continents to be; | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| And Love would answer with a sigh, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| ‘The sound of that forgetful shore | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Will change my sweetness more and more, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Half dead to know that I shall die.’ | 8 | ········ |
| O me! what profits it to put | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| An idle case? If Death were seen | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| At first as Death, Love had not been, | 8 | ········ |
| Or been in narrowest working shut, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Mere fellowship of sluggish moods, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Had bruised the herb and crush’d the grape, | 8 | ········ |
| And bask’d and batten’d in the woods. | 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.