Memorabilia
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,And did he stop and speak to you,And did you speak to him again?How strange it seems and new!
But you were living before that,And also you are living after;And the memory I started at--My starting moves your laughter!
I crossed a moor, with a name of its ownAnd a certain use in the world no doubt,Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone'Mid the blank miles round about:
For there I picked up on the heather,And there I put inside my breastA molted feather, an eagle-feather!Well, I forget the rest.
About this text
Memorabilia is in the public domain. This text is taken from Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning, Project Gutenberg ebook #28041; 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 Browning, Memorabilia, in Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning (1864), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #28041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/browning-selections/memorabilia.html, id L25098.
Form and metre
Memorabilia is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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 ABAB plainA · youB · againA · newB
- 2 ABAB thatA · afterB · atA · laughterB
- 3 ABAB ownA · doubtB · aloneA · aboutB
- 4 ABAB heatherA · breastB · featherA · restB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And did he stop and speak to you, | 8 | ········ |
| And did you speak to him again? | 8 | ······˘/ |
| How strange it seems and new! | 6 | ······ |
| But you were living before that, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And also you are living after; | 9 | ·/˘··/˘·· |
| And the memory I started at-- | 9 | ··/˘˘·/˘· |
| My starting moves your laughter! | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| I crossed a moor, with a name of its own | 10 | ·········· |
| And a certain use in the world no doubt, | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| 'Mid the blank miles round about: | 7 | ······· |
| For there I picked up on the heather, | 10 | ····˘···/˘ |
| And there I put inside my breast | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| A molted feather, an eagle-feather! | 10 | ·/˘/˘·/˘/˘ |
| Well, I forget the rest. | 6 | ··˘/·· |
On this poem
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.