Assumption
A mile of moonlight and the whispering wood:A mile of shadow and the odorous lane:One large, white star above the solitude,Like one sweet wish: and, laughter after pain,Wild-roses wistful in a web of rain.
No star, no rose, to lesson him and lead;No woodsman compass of the skies and rocks,--Tattooed of stars and lichens,--doth love needTo guide him where, among the hollyhocks,A blur of moonlight, gleam his sweetheart's locks.
We name it beauty--that permitted part,The love-elected apotheosisOf Nature, which the god within the heart,Just touching, makes immortal, but by this--A star, a rose, the memory of a kiss.
Words in this poem
- wistful a.
- Longing; wishful; desirous. [For wishful; perhaps influenced by wistly, which is probably corrupted from OE. wisly certainly (from Icel. viss certain, akin to E. wit). See Wish.]
- woodsman n.
- A woodman; especially, one who lives in the forest.
- apotheosis n.
- The act of elevating a mortal to the rank of, and placing him among,
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Assumption is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #7796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Madison Julius Cawein, Assumption, in Poems (1911), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cawein-poems/assumption.html, id L10886.
Form and metre
Assumption is 15 lines in 3 stanzas of 5 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABABB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 13% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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-AA wood · laneA · solitude · painA · rainA
- 2 ABABB leadA · rocksB · needA · hollyhocksB · locksB
- 3 ABABB partA · apotheosisB · heartA · thisB · kissB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A mile of moonlight and the whispering wood: | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
| A mile of shadow and the odorous lane: | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
| One large, white star above the solitude, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Like one sweet wish: and, laughter after pain, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Wild-roses wistful in a web of rain. | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| No star, no rose, to lesson him and lead; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| No woodsman compass of the skies and rocks,-- | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Tattooed of stars and lichens,--doth love need | 10 | ˘/···/˘··· |
| To guide him where, among the hollyhocks, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| A blur of moonlight, gleam his sweetheart's locks. | 10 | ···/···/·· |
| We name it beauty--that permitted part, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| The love-elected apotheosis | 10 | ··˘/˘˘·˘/˘ |
| Of Nature, which the god within the heart, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Just touching, makes immortal, but by this-- | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘··· |
| A star, a rose, the memory of a kiss. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
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.