Prototypes
Whether it be that we in letters traceThe pure exactness of a wood bird's strain,And name it song; or with the brush attainThe high perfection of a wildflower's face;Or mold in difficult marble all the graceWe know as man; or from the wind and rainCatch elemental rapture of refrainAnd mark in music to due time and place:The aim of Art is Nature; to unfoldHer truth and beauty to the souls of menIn close suggestions; in whose forms is castNothing so new but 'tis long eons old;Nothing so old but 'tis as young as whenThe mind conceived it in the ages past.
About this text
Prototypes 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, Prototypes, in Poems (1911), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cawein-poems/prototypes.html, id L10962.
Form and metre
Prototypes is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDECDE, the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 64% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other Italian sonnets, 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 ABBAABBACDECDE traceA · strainB · attainB · faceA · graceA · rainB · refrainB · placeA · unfoldC · menD · castE · oldC · whenD · pastE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Whether it be that we in letters trace | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| The pure exactness of a wood bird's strain, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| And name it song; or with the brush attain | 10 | ········˘/ |
| The high perfection of a wildflower's face; | 10 | ··˘/˘··/·· |
| Or mold in difficult marble all the grace | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| We know as man; or from the wind and rain | 10 | ·········· |
| Catch elemental rapture of refrain | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And mark in music to due time and place: | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The aim of Art is Nature; to unfold | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Her truth and beauty to the souls of men | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| In close suggestions; in whose forms is cast | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Nothing so new but 'tis long eons old; | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Nothing so old but 'tis as young as when | 10 | /˘········ |
| The mind conceived it in the ages past. | 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.