The Elm
This is the place where Dorothea smiled.I did not know the reason, nor did she.But there she stood, and turned, and smiled at me:A sudden glory had bewitched the child.The corn at harvest, and a single tree.This is the place where Dorothea smiled.
About this text
The Elm is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #60663; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Hilaire Belloc, The Elm, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/the-elm.html, id L21715.
Form and metre
The Elm is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBABA. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABBABA smiledA · sheB · meB · childA · treeB · smiledA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| This is the place where Dorothea smiled. | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| I did not know the reason, nor did she. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| But there she stood, and turned, and smiled at me: | 10 | ·········· |
| A sudden glory had bewitched the child. | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/·· |
| The corn at harvest, and a single tree. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| This is the place where Dorothea smiled. | 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.