For John Keats, Apostle of Beauty
Not writ in water, nor in mist,Sweet lyric throat, thy name;Thy singing lips that cold death kissedHave seared his own with flame.
Words in this poem
- seared a.
- Scorched; cauterized; hence, figuratively, insensible; not susceptible to moral influences.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
For John Keats, Apostle of Beauty is in the public domain. This text is taken from Color, Project Gutenberg ebook #70543; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Countee Cullen, For John Keats, Apostle of Beauty, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/for-john-keats-apostle-of-beauty.html, id L01459.
Form and metre
For John Keats, Apostle of Beauty is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 7.2 syllables.
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 mistA · nameB · kissedA · flameB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Not writ in water, nor in mist, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Sweet lyric throat, thy name; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Thy singing lips that cold death kissed | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Have seared his own with flame. | 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.