Impromptu, in Reply to a Friend
When, from the heart where Sorrow sits,Her dusky shadow mounts too high,And o'er the changing aspect flits,And clouds the brow, or fills the eye;Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink:My Thoughts their dungeon know too well;Back to my breast the Wanderers shrink,And droop within their silent cell.ce
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- dungeon n.
- A close, dark prison, commondonjon or keep of a castle, these being used as prisons. [OE. donjoun highest tower of a castle, tower, prison, F. donjon tower or platform in the midst of a castle, turret, or closet on the top of a house, a keep of a]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Impromptu, in Reply to a Friend is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3, Project Gutenberg ebook #21811; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lord Byron, Impromptu, in Reply to a Friend, in The Giaour, and Other Poems (1816), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21811, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-works-3/impromptu-in-reply-to-a-friend.html, id L23857.
Form and metre
Impromptu, in Reply to a Friend is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 -A-AB-B- sits · highA · flits · eyeA · sinkB · well · shrinkB · cell.ce
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When, from the heart where Sorrow sits, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Her dusky shadow mounts too high, | 8 | ·/˘/···· |
| And o'er the changing aspect flits, | 8 | ···/˘/·· |
| And clouds the brow, or fills the eye; | 8 | ········ |
| Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink: | 8 | ········ |
| My Thoughts their dungeon know too well; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Back to my breast the Wanderers shrink, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And droop within their silent cell.ce | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
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.