Poem X
To us, O Queen of sinless grace,Now at our prayer unveil thy face:Awake again thy beauty free;Return and make our Graces three.And with our thronging strength to the ends of the earthThy myriad-voicèd loveliness go forth,To lead o'er all the world's wide waysGod's everlasting praise,And every heart inspireWith the joy of man in the beauty of Love's desire.
Words in this poem
- sinless a.
- Free from sin. Piers Plowman.
- unveil v. t.
- To remove a veil from; to divest of a veil; to uncover; to disclose to view; to reveal; as, she unveiled her face. [1st pref. un- + veil.]
- myriad n.
- The number of ten thousand; ten thousand persons or things. [Gr. myriade.]
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poem X is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas, Project Gutenberg ebook #37804; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Bridges, Poem X, in The Growth of Love, and Other Poems (1873–1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37804, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bridges-shorter-poems/poem-x.html, id L01842.
Form and metre
Poem X is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 60% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%). 81% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.0 syllables. 30% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AABB--CC-- graceA · faceA · freeB · threeB · earth · forth · waysC · praiseC · inspire · desire
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 |
|---|---|---|
| To us, O Queen of sinless grace, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Now at our prayer unveil thy face: | 9 | ··/˘·˘/·· |
| Awake again thy beauty free; | 8 | ˘/˘/·/˘· |
| Return and make our Graces three. | 9 | ˘/··/˘/˘· |
| And with our thronging strength to the ends of the earth | 12 | ··//˘······· |
| Thy myriad-voicèd loveliness go forth, | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘˘·· |
| To lead o'er all the world's wide ways | 8 | ········ |
| God's everlasting praise, | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| And every heart inspire | 7 | ·/˘˘·˘/ |
| With the joy of man in the beauty of Love's desire. | 13 | ·······/˘··˘/ |
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.