Arabia
Far are the shades of Arabia,Where the Princes ride at noon,'Mid the verdurous vales and thickets,Under the ghost of the moon;And so dark is that vaulted purpleFlowers in the forest riseAnd toss into blossom 'gainst the phantom starsPale in the noonday skies.
Sweet is the music of ArabiaIn my heart, when out of dreamsI still in the thin clear mirk of dawnDescry her gliding streams;Hear her strange lutes on the green banksRing loud with the grief and delightOf the dim-silked, dark-haired MusiciansIn the brooding silence of night.
They haunt me--her lutes and her forests;No beauty on earth I seeBut shadowed with that dream recallsHer loveliness to me:Still eyes look coldly upon me,Cold voices whisper and say--'He is crazed with the spell of far Arabia,They have stolen his wits away.'
Words in this poem
- verdurous a.
- Covered with verdure; clothed with the fresh green of vegetation; verdured; verdant; as, verdurous pastures.
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
- noonday n.
- Midday; twelve o'clock in the day; noon.
- mirk a.
- Dark; gloomy; murky. Spenser. Mrs. Browning. [See Murky.]
- descry
- , Discovery or view, as of an army seen at a distance.
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
- coldly adv.
- In a cold manner; without warmth, animation, or feeling; with indifference; calmly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Arabia is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Listeners and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #22569; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walter de la Mare, Arabia, in The Listeners and Other Poems (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22569, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/de-la-mare-listeners/arabia.html, id L17096.
Form and metre
Arabia is 24 lines in 3 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 72%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 46% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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-B-B arabia · noonA · thickets · moonA · purple · riseB · stars · skiesB
- 2 -A-A-B-B arabia · dreamsA · dawn · streamsA · banks · delightB · musicians · nightB
- 3 -A-AAB-B forests · seeA · recalls · meA · meA · sayB · arabia · awayB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Far are the shades of Arabia, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Where the Princes ride at noon, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| 'Mid the verdurous vales and thickets, | 9 | ··/˘˘··/˘ |
| Under the ghost of the moon; | 7 | ······· |
| And so dark is that vaulted purple | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Flowers in the forest rise | 6 | /··/˘· |
| And toss into blossom 'gainst the phantom stars | 11 | ····/˘··/˘· |
| Pale in the noonday skies. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Sweet is the music of Arabia | 9 | ···/˘·˘/˘ |
| In my heart, when out of dreams | 7 | ······· |
| I still in the thin clear mirk of dawn | 9 | ········· |
| Descry her gliding streams; | 6 | ˘/·/˘· |
| Hear her strange lutes on the green banks | 8 | ········ |
| Ring loud with the grief and delight | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Of the dim-silked, dark-haired Musicians | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| In the brooding silence of night. | 8 | ··/˘/˘·· |
| They haunt me--her lutes and her forests; | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| No beauty on earth I see | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| But shadowed with that dream recalls | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Her loveliness to me: | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| Still eyes look coldly upon me, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Cold voices whisper and say-- | 7 | ·/˘/˘·· |
| 'He is crazed with the spell of far Arabia, | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| They have stolen his wits away.' | 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.