Bamborough Castle
Ye holy Towers that shade the wave-worn steep,Long may ye rear your aged brows sublime,Though, hurrying silent by, relentless TimeAssail you, and the winds of winter sweepRound your dark battlements; for far from hallsOf Pride, here Charity hath fixed her seat,Oft listening, tearful, when the tempests beatWith hollow bodings round your ancient walls;And Pity, at the dark and stormy hourOf midnight, when the moon is hid on high,Keeps her lone watch upon the topmost tower,And turns her ear to each expiring cry;Blessed if her aid some fainting wretch may save,And snatch him cold and speechless from the wave.
Words in this poem
- relentless a.
- Unmoved by appeals for sympathy or forgiveness; insensible to the distresses of others; destitute of tenderness; unrelenting; unyielding; unpitying; as, a prey to relentless despotism.
- tearful a.
- Abounding with tears; weeping; shedding tears; as, tearful eyes.
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
- expiring a.
- Breathing out air from the lungs; emitting fluid or volatile matter; exhaling; breathing the last breath; dying; ending; terminating.
- speechless a.
- Destitute or deprived of the faculty of speech.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Bamborough Castle is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan, Project Gutenberg ebook #18915; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Lisle Bowles, Bamborough Castle, in The Poetical Works, Volume I (1789–1837), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18915, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bowles-sonnets/bamborough-castle.html, id L09875.
Form and metre
Bamborough Castle is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of the English sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 36% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end. Rhymes that have moved apart since the poem was written: blast / side, past / tide, beam / rent, battlement / gleam, deep / rest and 238 more.
See other English sonnets, 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 ABABCDCDEFEFGG steepA · sublimeB · timeA · sweepB · hallsC · seatD · beatC · wallsD · hourE · highF · towerE · cryF · saveG · waveG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ye holy Towers that shade the wave-worn steep, | 10 | ·/˘/······ |
| Long may ye rear your aged brows sublime, | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| Though, hurrying silent by, relentless Time | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| Assail you, and the winds of winter sweep | 10 | ˘/·····/˘· |
| Round your dark battlements; for far from halls | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| Of Pride, here Charity hath fixed her seat, | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| Oft listening, tearful, when the tempests beat | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| With hollow bodings round your ancient walls; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And Pity, at the dark and stormy hour | 11 | ·/˘····/˘/˘ |
| Of midnight, when the moon is hid on high, | 10 | ·/········ |
| Keeps her lone watch upon the topmost tower, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| And turns her ear to each expiring cry; | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Blessed if her aid some fainting wretch may save, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And snatch him cold and speechless from the wave. | 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.