Garden Gossip
Thin, chisel-fine a cricket chippedThe crystal silence into sound;And where the branches dreamed and drippedA grasshopper its dagger strippedAnd on the humming darkness ground.
A bat, against the gibbous moon,Danced, implike, with its lone delight;The glowworm scrawled a golden runeUpon the dark; and, emerald-strewn,The firefly hung with lamps the night.
The flowers said their beads in prayer,Dew-syllables of sighed perfume;Or talked of two, soft-standing there,One like a gladiole, straight and fair,And one like some rich poppy-bloom.
The mignonette and feverfewLaid their pale brows together:--"See!"One whispered: "Did their step thrill throughYour roots?"--"Like rain."--"I touched the twoAnd a new bud was born in me."
One rose said to another:--"WhoseIs this dim music? song, that partsMy crimson petals like the dews?""My blossom trembles with sweet news--It is the love of two young hearts."
Words in this poem
- gibbous a.
- Swelling by a regular curve or surface; protuberant; convex; as, the moon is gibbous between the half-moon and the full moon. [Cf. F. gibbeux. See Gibbose.]
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
- glowworm n.
- A coleopterous insect of the genus Lampyris; esp., the wingless females and larvæ of the two European species (L. noctiluca, and L.
- rune n.
- A letter, or character, belonging to the written language of the ancient Norsemen, or Scandinavians; in a wider sense, applied to the letters of the ancient nations of Northern Europe in general. [AS. run a rune, a secret, a mystery; akin to Icel. run, OHG. & Goth. runa a secret, secret colloquy, G. & Dan. rune rune, and probably to Gr. 'ereyna^n to searc]
- firefly n.
- Any luminous winged insect, esp. luminous beetles of the family Lampyridæ.
- gladiole n.
- A lilylike plant, of the genus Gladiolus; -- called also corn flag. [L. gladiolus a small sword, the sword lily, dim. of gladius sword. See Glaive.]
- mignonette n.
- A plant (Reseda odorata) having greenish flowers with orange- colored stamens, and exhaling a delicious fragrance. In Africa it is a low shrub, but further north it is usually an annual herb. [F. mignonnette, dim. of mignon darling. See 2d Minion.]
- feverfew n.
- A perennial plant (Pyrethrum, or Chrysanthemum, Parthenium) allied to camomile, having finely divided leaves and white blossoms; -- so named from its supposed febrifugal qualities. [AS. feferfuge, fr. L. febrifugia. See fever, Fugitive, and cf. Febrifuge.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Garden Gossip 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, Garden Gossip, in Poems (1911), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cawein-poems/garden-gossip.html, id L10885.
Form and metre
Garden Gossip is 25 lines in 5 stanzas of 5 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 36% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABAAB chippedA · soundB · drippedA · strippedA · groundB
- 2 ABAAB moonA · delightB · runeA · strewnA · nightB
- 3 ABAAB prayerA · perfumeB · thereA · fairA · bloomB
- 4 ABAAB feverfewA · seeB · throughA · twoA · meB
- 5 ABAAB whoseA · partsB · dewsA · newsA · heartsB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thin, chisel-fine a cricket chipped | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The crystal silence into sound; | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And where the branches dreamed and dripped | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A grasshopper its dagger stripped | 8 | ·/·˘·/˘· |
| And on the humming darkness ground. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| A bat, against the gibbous moon, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Danced, implike, with its lone delight; | 8 | ······˘/ |
| The glowworm scrawled a golden rune | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Upon the dark; and, emerald-strewn, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The firefly hung with lamps the night. | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| The flowers said their beads in prayer, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Dew-syllables of sighed perfume; | 8 | ·/˘˘··˘/ |
| Or talked of two, soft-standing there, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| One like a gladiole, straight and fair, | 9 | ···/˘˘··· |
| And one like some rich poppy-bloom. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The mignonette and feverfew | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Laid their pale brows together:--"See!" | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| One whispered: "Did their step thrill through | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Your roots?"--"Like rain."--"I touched the two | 8 | ········ |
| And a new bud was born in me." | 8 | ········ |
| One rose said to another:--"Whose | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Is this dim music? song, that parts | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| My crimson petals like the dews?" | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| "My blossom trembles with sweet news-- | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| It is the love of two young hearts." | 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.