Charlotte Brontë
ORCHID, chance-sown among the moorland heather,Scarce seen or tasted by the infrequent bee,Set mid rough mountain growths, lashed by wild weather,With none to foster thee.
We watch thee fronting all the blasts of heaven,Thy slender rootlets grappled fast to rock,Enduring from thy morning to thy evenThe buffet and the shock.
Never thy sun vouchsafed a cloudless shining,Never the wind was tempered to thy pain;No cloud turned out for thee its silver lining,No rainbow followed rain.
Nourished mid hardness, learning patience slowlyAs hearts must do which know no other food,Duty and Memory, companions holy,Shared thy bleak solitude.
Cold touch of Memory, strong chill hand of Duty,These held thee fast and ruled thee to the end,Until, with smile mysterious in its beauty,Came Death, rewarding friend.
Earth gave thee scanty cheer, but earth is ended,Finished the years of thwarted sacrifice.We see thee walking forward, well attended,Led into Paradise!
Heaven is twice Heaven to one who, hungry-hearted,Goes thither knowing no satisfaction here;And when we thank the Lord for those departedIn this sure faith and fear,
We think of thee, lonely no more forever,And tasting, while the eternal years unroll,That joy of Heaven, which like a flowing riverSatisfies every soul.
Words in this poem
- orchid n.
- Any plant of the order Orchidaceæ. See Orchidaceous. [See Orchis.]
- moorland n.
- Land consisting of a moor or moors. [AS. morland.]
- scarce a.
- Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. [OE. scars, OF. escars, eschars, LL. scarpsus, for L. excerptus, p. p. of excerpere to pick out, and hence to contract, to shorten; ex (see Ex-) + carpere. See C]
- infrequent a.
- Seldom happening or occurring; rare; uncommon; unusual. [L. infrquens : cf.F. infrequent. See In- not, and Frequent.]
- buffet n.
- A cupboard or set of shelves, either movable or fixed at one side of a room, for the display of plate, china, etc., a sideboard. [F. buffet, LL. bufetum; of uncertain origin; perh. fr. the same source as E. buffet a blow, the root meaning to puff, hence (cf. puffed up) the idea of ostentat]
- cloudless a.
- Without a cloud; clear; bright.
- thank n.
- A expression of gratitude; an acknowledgment expressive of a sense of favor or kindness received; obligation, claim, or desert, or gratitude; -- now generally used in the plural. [AS. Þanc, Þonc, thanks, favor, thought; akin to OS. thank favor, pleasure, thanks, D. & G. dank thanks, Icel. Þ\'94kk, Dan. tak, Sw. tack, Goth. Þagks thanks; -]
- unroll v. t.
- To open, as what is rolled or convolved; as, to unroll cloth; to unroll a banner. [1st pref. un- + roll.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Charlotte Brontë is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Few More Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #49518; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Susan Coolidge, Charlotte Brontë, in A Few More Verses (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49518, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coolidge-few-more-verses/charlotte-bront.html, id L23416.
Form and metre
Charlotte Brontë is 32 lines in 8 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 6 of its 8 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See 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 ABAB heatherA · beeB · weatherA · theeB
- 2 -A-A heaven · rockA · even · shockA
- 3 ABAB shiningA · painB · liningA · rainB
- 4 ABAB slowlyA · foodB · holyA · solitudeB
- 5 ABAB dutyA · endB · beautyA · friendB
- 6 ABAB endedA · sacrificeB · attendedA · paradiseB
- 7 ABAB heartedA · hereB · departedA · fearB
- 8 -A-A forever · unrollA · river · soulA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| ORCHID, chance-sown among the moorland heather, | 11 | /˘·····/·/˘ |
| Scarce seen or tasted by the infrequent bee, | 11 | ···/˘··˘/˘· |
| Set mid rough mountain growths, lashed by wild weather, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| With none to foster thee. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| We watch thee fronting all the blasts of heaven, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Thy slender rootlets grappled fast to rock, | 11 | ·/˘··/˘˘··· |
| Enduring from thy morning to thy even | 11 | ˘/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| The buffet and the shock. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Never thy sun vouchsafed a cloudless shining, | 11 | /˘·····/˘/˘ |
| Never the wind was tempered to thy pain; | 11 | /˘···/˘˘··· |
| No cloud turned out for thee its silver lining, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| No rainbow followed rain. | 6 | ·/·/˘· |
| Nourished mid hardness, learning patience slowly | 11 | /˘·/˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| As hearts must do which know no other food, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Duty and Memory, companions holy, | 11 | /˘·/˘˘˘/˘/˘ |
| Shared thy bleak solitude. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Cold touch of Memory, strong chill hand of Duty, | 12 | ···/˘˘····/˘ |
| These held thee fast and ruled thee to the end, | 11 | ······˘···· |
| Until, with smile mysterious in its beauty, | 12 | ····˘/˘˘··/˘ |
| Came Death, rewarding friend. | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| Earth gave thee scanty cheer, but earth is ended, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Finished the years of thwarted sacrifice. | 11 | /˘˘···/˘/˘· |
| We see thee walking forward, well attended, | 11 | ···/˘/˘·˘/˘ |
| Led into Paradise! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Heaven is twice Heaven to one who, hungry-hearted, | 12 | /··/˘···/˘/˘ |
| Goes thither knowing no satisfaction here; | 11 | ·/˘/˘··˘/˘· |
| And when we thank the Lord for those departed | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| In this sure faith and fear, | 6 | ······ |
| We think of thee, lonely no more forever, | 11 | ····/˘··˘/˘ |
| And tasting, while the eternal years unroll, | 11 | ·/˘··˘/˘·˘/ |
| That joy of Heaven, which like a flowing river | 12 | ···/˘···/˘/˘ |
| Satisfies every soul. | 7 | /˘·/˘˘· |
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.