Analysis of The Day Is Coming
William Morris 1834 (Walthamstow) – 1896 (London)
Come hither lads and hearken,
for a tale there is to tell,
Of the wonderful days a-coming, when all
shall be better than well.
And the tale shall be told of a country,
a land in the midst of the sea,
And folk shall call it England
in the days that are going to be.
There more than one in a thousand
in the days that are yet to come,
Shall have some hope of the morrow,
some joy of the ancient home.
For then, laugh not, but listen,
to this strange tale of mine,
All folk that are in England
shall be better lodged than swine.
Then a man shall work and bethink him,
and rejoice in the deeds of his hand,
Nor yet come home in the even
too faint and weary to stand.
Men in that time a-coming
shall work and have no fear
For to-morrow’s lack of earning
and the hunger-wolf anear.
I tell you this for a wonder,
that no man then shall be glad
Of his fellow’s fall and mishap
to snatch at the work he had.
For that which the worker winneth
shall then be his indeed,
Nor shall half be reaped for nothing
by him that sowed no seed.
O strange new wonderful justice!
But for whom shall we gather the gain?
For ourselves and for each of our fellows,
and no hand shall labour in vain.
Then all Mine and all Thine shall be Ours,
and no more shall any man crave
For riches that serve for nothing
but to fetter a friend for a slave.
And what wealth then shall be left us
when none shall gather gold
To buy his friend in the market,
and pinch and pine the sold?
Nay, what save the lovely city,
and the little house on the hill,
And the wastes and the woodland beauty,
and the happy fields we till;
And the homes of ancient stories,
the tombs of the mighty dead;
And the wise men seeking out marvels,
and the poet’s teeming head;
And the painter’s hand of wonder;
and the marvellous fiddle-bow,
And the banded choirs of music:
all those that do and know.
For all these shall be ours and all men’s
nor shall any lack a share
Of the toil and the gain of living
in the days when the world grows fair.
Ah! such are the days that shall be!
But what are the deeds of to-day,
In the days of the years we dwell in,
that wear our lives away?
Why, then, and for what are we waiting?
There are three words to speak;
WE WILL IT, and what is the foeman
but the dream-strong wakened and weak?
O why and for what are we waiting?
while our brothers droop and die,
And on every wind of the heavens
a wasted life goes by.
How long shall they reproach us
where crowd on crowd they dwell,
Poor ghosts of the wicked city,
the gold-crushed hungry hell?
Through squalid life they laboured,
in sordid grief they died,
Those sons of a mighty mother,
those props of England’s pride.
They are gone; there is none can undo it,
nor save our souls from the curse;
But many a million cometh,
and shall they be better or worse?
It is we must answer and hasten,
and open wide the door
For the rich man’s hurrying terror,
and the slow-foot hope of the poor.
Yea, the voiceless wrath of the wretched,
and their unlearned discontent,
We must give it voice and wisdom
till the waiting-tide be spent.
Come, then, since all things call us,
the living and the dead,
And o’er the weltering tangle
a glimmering light is shed.
Come, then, let us cast off fooling,
and put by ease and rest,
For the Cause alone is worthy
till the good days bring the best.
Come, join in the only battle
wherein no man can fail,
Where whoso fadeth and dieth,
yet his deed shall still prevail.
Ah! come, cast off all fooling,
for this, at least, we know:
That the Dawn and the Day is coming,
and forth the Banners go.
Scheme | ABXB CCDC DEFX AADA XGAG HXHC IJXJ KLHL MAXA XNHN MOXO CPCP XQXQ IXXA XRHR CS ASHTAT HUXU MBCB DVIV XWKW AXIX XXEX MQYQ HZCZ Y1 K1 HAHF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 110101 1011111 10100101011 111011 0011111010 01001101 0111110 001111011 11110010 00111111 11111010 1110101 1111110 111111 1111010 1110111 10111011 001001111 11110010 1101011 1011010 110111 1111110 001011 11111010 1111111 1110101 1110111 1110101 111101 11111110 111111 11110010 111111001 100101111010 0111101 1110111110 01111011 11011110 111001101 01111111 111101 11110010 010101 11101010 00101101 00100110 0010111 00111010 0110101 001110110 0010101 00101110 001101 00101110 111101 1111110011 1110101 101001110 00110111 11101111 11101111 001101110 1110101 110111110 111111 11101101 1011101 110111110 11010101 0110011010 010111 1111011 111111 11101010 011101 110111 010111 11101010 111101 1111111011 11101101 11001010 01111011 111110010 010101 101110010 00111101 101011010 011001 11111010 1010111 1111111 010001 010110 0100111 11111110 011101 10101110 1011101 11001010 011111 11101 1111101 1111110 111111 101001110 010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 3,453 |
Words | 693 |
Sentences | 33 |
Stanzas | 27 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 2, 6, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 108 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 101 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 12, 2023
- 3:28 min read
- 198 Views
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"The Day Is Coming" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/41151/the-day-is-coming>.
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