First Angel
And she so young, that I who bringGood dreams for saintly children, mightMistake that small soft face to-night,And fetch her such a blessed thingThat at her waking she would weepFor childhood lost anew in sleep.How hath she sinned?
We may reproveThe world for this, not only her:Let me approach to breathe awayThis dust o' the heart with holy air.
Words in this poem
- saintly a.
- Like a saint; becoming a holy person.
- childhood n.
- The state of being a child; the time in which persons are children; the condition or time from infancy to puberty. [AS. cildhad; cild child + -had. See Child, and hood.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
First Angel is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #33363; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, First Angel, in Lady Geraldine's Courtship, and Other Poems (1844), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #33363, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/barrett-browning-poems-2/first-angel.html, id L24811.
Form and metre
First Angel is 11 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 ABBACC- bringA · mightB · nightB · thingA · weepC · sleepC · sinned
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And she so young, that I who bring | 8 | ········ |
| Good dreams for saintly children, might | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Mistake that small soft face to-night, | 8 | ˘/······ |
| And fetch her such a blessed thing | 8 | ······˘· |
| That at her waking she would weep | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| For childhood lost anew in sleep. | 8 | ·/··˘/·· |
| How hath she sinned? | 4 | ···· |
| We may reprove | 4 | ··˘/ |
| The world for this, not only her: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Let me approach to breathe away | 8 | ··˘/··˘/ |
| This dust o' the heart with holy air. | 9 | ······/˘· |
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.