Eclogue I
"Come thou, whose thoughts as limpid springs are clear,To lead the train, sweet Modesty, appear;With thee be Chastity, of all afraid,Distrusting all, a wise, suspicious maid;Cold is her breast, like flowers that drink the dew;A silken veil conceals her from the view."
Words in this poem
- distrusting a.
- That distrusts; suspicious; lacking confidence in.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Eclogue I is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of William Collins; With a Memoir, Project Gutenberg ebook #29879; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Collins, Eclogue I, in Poetical Works (1746), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #29879, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/collins-poems/eclogue-i.html, id L18650.
Form and metre
Eclogue I is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCC clearA · appearA · afraidB · maidB · dewC · viewC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "Come thou, whose thoughts as limpid springs are clear, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| To lead the train, sweet Modesty, appear; | 10 | ·····/˘˘˘/ |
| With thee be Chastity, of all afraid, | 10 | ···/˘˘··˘/ |
| Distrusting all, a wise, suspicious maid; | 10 | ˘/˘···˘/˘· |
| Cold is her breast, like flowers that drink the dew; | 10 | ·····/···· |
| A silken veil conceals her from the view." | 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.