Fragment from the Greek of Alcman
The mountain summits sleep: glens, cliffs and caves,Are silent—all the black earth’s reptile brood—The bees—the wild beasts of the mountain wood:In depths beneath the dark red ocean’s wavesIts monsters rest, whilst wrapt in bower and sprayEach bird is hushed that stretched its pinions to the day.
About this text
Fragment from the Greek of Alcman is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, Project Gutenberg ebook #59788; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Campbell, Fragment from the Greek of Alcman, in The Pleasures of Hope, and Other Poems (1824), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59788, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/campbell-poems/fragment-from-the-greek-of-alcman.html, id L24468.
Form and metre
Fragment from the Greek of Alcman is 6 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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--ABB cavesA · brood · wood · wavesA · sprayB · dayB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The mountain summits sleep: glens, cliffs and caves, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Are silent—all the black earth’s reptile brood— | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| The bees—the wild beasts of the mountain wood: | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| In depths beneath the dark red ocean’s waves | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Its monsters rest, whilst wrapt in bower and spray | 10 | ·/˘····/·· |
| Each bird is hushed that stretched its pinions to the day. | 12 | ·······/˘··· |
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.