For the Class of 1904
The shadow by my finger castDivides the future from the past:Before it, sleeps the unborn hour,In darkness, and beyond thy power:Behind its unreturning line,The vanished hour, no longer thine:One hour alone is in thy hands,--The NOW on which the shadow stands.
Words in this poem
- unborn a.
- Not born; no yet brought into life; being still to appear; future.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
For the Class of 1904 is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, Project Gutenberg ebook #16229; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Van Dyke, For the Class of 1904, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/for-the-class-of-1904.html, id L22873.
Form and metre
For the Class of 1904 is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AABBCCDD castA · pastA · hourB · powerB · lineC · thineC · handsD · standsD
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 shadow by my finger cast | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| Divides the future from the past: | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| Before it, sleeps the unborn hour, | 9 | ·····///˘ |
| In darkness, and beyond thy power: | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| Behind its unreturning line, | 8 | ········ |
| The vanished hour, no longer thine: | 8 | ·/˘/·/˘· |
| One hour alone is in thy hands,-- | 8 | ·/˘/···· |
| The NOW on which the shadow stands. | 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.