Not at Home
That Jealousy may rule a mindWhere Love could never beI know; but ne'er expect to findLove without Jealousy.
She has a strange cast in her ee,A swart sour-visaged maid--But yet Love's own twin-sister she,His house-mate and his shade.
Ask for her and she'll be denied:--What then? they only meanTheir mistress has lain down to sleep,And can't just then be seen.
Words in this poem
- expect v. t.
- To wait for; to await. [L. expectatum, to look out for, await, expect; ex + out spectare to look at. See Spectacle.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Not at Home is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Coleridge, Project Gutenberg ebook #8208; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Not at Home, in Poems of Coleridge (1796–1817), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8208, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coleridge-poems/not-at-home.html, id L00360.
Form and metre
Not at Home is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
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-A- mindA · be · findA · jealousy
- 2 ABAB eeA · maidB · sheA · shadeB
- 3 -A-A denied · meanA · sleep · seenA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| That Jealousy may rule a mind | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| Where Love could never be | 6 | ···/˘· |
| I know; but ne'er expect to find | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| Love without Jealousy. | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
| She has a strange cast in her ee, | 8 | ········ |
| A swart sour-visaged maid-- | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| But yet Love's own twin-sister she, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| His house-mate and his shade. | 6 | ······ |
| Ask for her and she'll be denied:-- | 8 | ······˘/ |
| What then? they only mean | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Their mistress has lain down to sleep, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And can't just then be seen. | 6 | ······ |
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.