Lines Written in an Album, at Malta.E
As o'er the cold sepulchral stoneSome name arrests the passer-by;Thus, when thou view'st this page alone,May mine attract thy pensive eye!
And when by thee that name is read,Perchance in some succeeding year,Reflect on me as on the dead,And think my Heart is buried here.
About this text
Lines Written in an Album, at Malta.E 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, Lines Written in an Album, at Malta.E, in The Giaour, and Other Poems (1816), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21811, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-works-3/lines-written-in-an-album-at-malta-e.html, id L23826.
Form and metre
Lines Written in an Album, at Malta.E is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 98%).
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 stoneA · byB · aloneA · eyeB
- 2 ABAB readA · yearB · deadA · hereB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| As o'er the cold sepulchral stone | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Some name arrests the passer-by; | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Thus, when thou view'st this page alone, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| May mine attract thy pensive eye! | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| And when by thee that name is read, | 8 | ········ |
| Perchance in some succeeding year, | 8 | ˘/··˘/˘· |
| Reflect on me as on the dead, | 8 | ˘/······ |
| And think my Heart is buried here. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
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.