Thisbe
The garden within was shaded,And guarded about from sight;The fragrance flowed to the south wind,The fountain leaped to the light.
And the street without was narrow,And dusty, and hot, and mean;But the bush that bore white roses,She leaned to the fence between:
And softly she sought a creviceIn that barrier blank and tall,And shyly she thrust out through itHer loveliest bud of all.
And tender to touch, and gracious,And pure as the moon’s pure shine,The full rose paled and was perfect,--For whose eyes, for whose lips, but mine!
Words in this poem
- shyly adv.
- In a shy or timid manner; not familiarly; with reserve.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Thisbe is in the public domain. This text is taken from A chant of love for England, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #71425; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Helen Gray Cone, Thisbe, in A Chant of Love for England, and Other Poems (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #71425, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cone-chant-for-england/thisbe.html, id L22064.
Form and metre
Thisbe is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%).
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 -A-A shaded · sightA · wind · lightA
- 2 -A-A narrow · meanA · roses · betweenA
- 3 -A-A crevice · tallA · it · allA
- 4 -A-A gracious · shineA · perfect · mineA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The garden within was shaded, | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| And guarded about from sight; | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| The fragrance flowed to the south wind, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The fountain leaped to the light. | 8 | ·/˘·˘··· |
| And the street without was narrow, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And dusty, and hot, and mean; | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| But the bush that bore white roses, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| She leaned to the fence between: | 8 | ··˘····· |
| And softly she sought a crevice | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| In that barrier blank and tall, | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| And shyly she thrust out through it | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Her loveliest bud of all. | 7 | ······· |
| And tender to touch, and gracious, | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| And pure as the moon’s pure shine, | 7 | ······· |
| The full rose paled and was perfect,-- | 8 | ······˘/ |
| For whose eyes, for whose lips, but mine! | 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.