Peace
With eager heart and will on fire,I strove to win my great desire."Peace shall be mine," I said; but lifeGrew bitter in the barren strife.
My soul was weary, and my prideWas wounded deep; to Heaven I cried,"God grant me peace or I must die;"The dumb stars glittered no reply.
Broken at last, I bowed my head,Forgetting all myself, and said,"Whatever comes, His will be done;"And in that moment peace was won.
Words in this poem
- 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,]
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Peace 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, Peace, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/peace.html, id L22842.
Form and metre
Peace is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
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 fireA · desireA · lifeB · strifeB
- 2 AABB prideA · criedA · dieB · replyB
- 3 AABB headA · saidA · doneB · wonB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| With eager heart and will on fire, | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| I strove to win my great desire. | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| "Peace shall be mine," I said; but life | 8 | ········ |
| Grew bitter in the barren strife. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| My soul was weary, and my pride | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Was wounded deep; to Heaven I cried, | 8 | ·/˘··/·· |
| "God grant me peace or I must die;" | 8 | ········ |
| The dumb stars glittered no reply. | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Broken at last, I bowed my head, | 8 | /˘······ |
| Forgetting all myself, and said, | 8 | ˘/˘··/·· |
| "Whatever comes, His will be done;" | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And in that moment peace was won. | 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.