Laurel · Robert Browning · Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning

"Round Us the Wild Creatures"

trochaic hexameter · AABB · 12 lines · from Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning

Round us the wild creatures, overhead the trees,Underfoot the moss-tracks--life and love with these!I to wear a fawn-skin, thou to dress in flowers;All the long lone summer day, that greenwood life of ours!

Rich-pavilioned, rather--still the world without--Inside--gold-roofed, silk-walled silence round about!Queen it thou on purple--I, at watch and ward,Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard!

So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me!Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we!Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face!God is soul, souls I and thou; with souls should souls have place.

Words in this poem

underfoot adv.: Under the feet; underneath; below. See Under foot, under Foot, n.
lone n.: A lane. See Loanin.
greenwood n.: A forest as it appears is spring and summer.
amid prep.: In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
squalid a.: Dirty through neglect; foul; filthy; extremely dirty. [L. squalidus, fr. squalere to be foul or filthy.]
hateful a.: Manifesting hate or hatred; malignant; malevolent.

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

"Round Us the Wild Creatures" 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, "Round Us the Wild Creatures", in Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning (1864), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #28041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/browning-selections/round-us-the-wild-creatures.html, id L25132.

Form and metre

"Round Us the Wild Creatures" is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is trochaic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).

See other poems in trochaic hexameter.

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 trees^A · these^A · flowers^B · ours^B
2 AABB without^A · about^A · ward^B · guard^B
3 AABB me^A · we^A · face^B · place^B

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 trochaic hexameter. How this is done.

Line	Syl.	Stress
Round us the wild creatures, overhead the trees,	11	····/˘/˘/··
Underfoot the moss-tracks--life and love with these!	11	·˘/········
I to wear a fawn-skin, thou to dress in flowers;	11	··········/
All the long lone summer day, that greenwood life of ours!	13	····/˘··/···/
Rich-pavilioned, rather--still the world without--	11	·˘/˘/˘·····
Inside--gold-roofed, silk-walled silence round about!	11	/·····/˘···
Queen it thou on purple--I, at watch and ward,	11	····/˘·····
Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard!	11	····/˘·····
So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me!	11	···········
Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we!	11	···˘/······
Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face!	11	/˘/˘/˘··/˘·
God is soul, souls I and thou; with souls should souls have place.	13	·············

On this poem

The first interlude in Ferishtah's Fancies. These interludes are love lyrics which follow the separate Fables and Fancies of the Persian Dervish Ferishtah, and state in terms of the affections the truth embodied in didactic or philosophical fashion in the fables. In the first fable, "The Eagle," the Dervish observes an eagle feeding some deserted ravens. His first inference is that men will be cared for as the ravens, without effort of their own; later he sees that men should be as eagles and provide for the weak. The Dervish at once seeks the largest sphere of human usefulness with the words "And since men congregate In towns, not woods--to Ispahan forthwith!" The lyric protests against the temptation to self-centered seclusion on the part of those who are entirely satisfied in each other's love.

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.

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