Circe
Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou?Thou lovest it, then, my wine?Wouldst more of it? See how glows,Through the delicate, flushed marble,The red creaming liquor,Strewn with dark seeds!Drink, then! I chide thee not,Deny thee not my bowl.Come, stretch forth thy hand, then--so!Drink--drink again!
About this text
Circe is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #54985; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Matthew Arnold, Circe, in Poems (1849–1867), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #54985, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/arnold-poems/circe.html, id L06995.
Form and metre
Circe is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.3 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in trochaic 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-- thou · wine · glows · marbleA · liquor · seeds · not · bowlA · so · again
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Foolish boy! Why tremblest thou? | 8 | /˘··/˘˘· |
| Thou lovest it, then, my wine? | 7 | ······· |
| Wouldst more of it? See how glows, | 7 | ······· |
| Through the delicate, flushed marble, | 8 | ··/˘˘·/˘ |
| The red creaming liquor, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Strewn with dark seeds! | 4 | ···· |
| Drink, then! I chide thee not, | 6 | ······ |
| Deny thee not my bowl. | 6 | ˘/···· |
| Come, stretch forth thy hand, then--so! | 7 | ······· |
| Drink--drink again! | 4 | ··˘/ |
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.