Stain Not the Sky
Ye gods of battle, lords of fear,Who work your iron will as wellAs once ye did with sword and spear,With rifled gun and rending shell,--Masters of sea and land, forbearThe fierce invasion of the inviolate air!
With patient daring man hath wroughtA hundred years for power to fly;And will you make his winged thoughtA hovering horror in the sky,Where flocks of human eagles sail,Dropping their bolts of death on hill and dale?
Ah no, the sunset is too pure,The dawn too fair, the noon too brightFor wings of terror to obscureTheir beauty, and betray the nightThat keeps for man, above his wars,The tranquil vision of untroubled stars.
Pass on, pass on, ye lords of fear!Your footsteps in the sea are red,And black on earth your paths appearWith ruined homes and heaps of dead.Pass on to end your transient reign,And leave the blue of heaven without a stain.
The wrong ye wrought will fall to dust,The right ye shielded will abide;The world at last will learn to trustIn law to guard, and love to guide;And Peace of God that answers prayerWill fall like dew from the inviolate air.
Words in this poem
- inviolate a.
- Not violated; uninjured; unhurt; unbroken. [L. inviolatus. See In- not, and Violate.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Stain Not the Sky 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, Stain Not the Sky, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/stain-not-the-sky.html, id L22923.
Form and metre
Stain Not the Sky is 30 lines in 5 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABABCC, complete in 3 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 ABABAA fearA · wellB · spearA · shellB · forbearA · airA
- 2 ABABCC wroughtA · flyB · thoughtA · skyB · sailC · daleC
- 3 ABAB-- pureA · brightB · obscureA · nightB · wars · stars
- 4 ABABCC fearA · redB · appearA · deadB · reignC · stainC
- 5 ABABCC dustA · abideB · trustA · guideB · prayerC · airC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ye gods of battle, lords of fear, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Who work your iron will as well | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| As once ye did with sword and spear, | 8 | ········ |
| With rifled gun and rending shell,-- | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Masters of sea and land, forbear | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| The fierce invasion of the inviolate air! | 11 | ··˘/˘··˘/˘· |
| With patient daring man hath wrought | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| A hundred years for power to fly; | 8 | ·/˘··/·· |
| And will you make his winged thought | 8 | ······˘· |
| A hovering horror in the sky, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Where flocks of human eagles sail, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Dropping their bolts of death on hill and dale? | 10 | /˘········ |
| Ah no, the sunset is too pure, | 8 | ···/···· |
| The dawn too fair, the noon too bright | 8 | ········ |
| For wings of terror to obscure | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Their beauty, and betray the night | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| That keeps for man, above his wars, | 8 | ········ |
| The tranquil vision of untroubled stars. | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| Pass on, pass on, ye lords of fear! | 8 | ········ |
| Your footsteps in the sea are red, | 8 | ·/······ |
| And black on earth your paths appear | 8 | ······˘/ |
| With ruined homes and heaps of dead. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Pass on to end your transient reign, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And leave the blue of heaven without a stain. | 10 | ·····/···· |
| The wrong ye wrought will fall to dust, | 8 | ········ |
| The right ye shielded will abide; | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| The world at last will learn to trust | 8 | ········ |
| In law to guard, and love to guide; | 8 | ········ |
| And Peace of God that answers prayer | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Will fall like dew from the inviolate air. | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
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.