If All the Skies
If all the skies were sunshine,Our faces would be fainTo feel once more upon themThe cooling plash of rain.
If all the world were music,Our hearts would often longFor one sweet strain of silence.To break the endless song.
If life were always merry,Our souls would seek relief,And rest from weary laughterIn the quiet arms of grief.
Words in this poem
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
- fain v. t.
- To be glad ; to wish or desire.
- cooling a.
- Adapted to cool and refresh; allaying heat.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
If All the Skies 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, If All the Skies, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/if-all-the-skies.html, id L22752.
Form and metre
If All the Skies is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 98%).
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 -A-A sunshine · fainA · them · rainA
- 2 -A-A music · longA · silence · songA
- 3 -A-A merry · reliefA · laughter · griefA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| If all the skies were sunshine, | 7 | ·····/· |
| Our faces would be fain | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| To feel once more upon them | 7 | ······· |
| The cooling plash of rain. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| If all the world were music, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Our hearts would often long | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| For one sweet strain of silence. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| To break the endless song. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| If life were always merry, | 7 | ···/·/˘ |
| Our souls would seek relief, | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| And rest from weary laughter | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| In the quiet arms of grief. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
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.