The Mountains
Still, and blanched, and cold, and lone,The icy hills far off from meWith frosty ulys overgrownStand in their sculptured secrecy.
No path of theirs the chamois fleetTreads, with a nostril to the wind;O'er their ice-marbled glaciers beatNo wings of eagles in my mind--
Yea, in my mind these mountains rise,Their perils dyed with evening's rose;And still my ghost sits at my eyesAnd thirsts for their untroubled snows.
Words in this poem
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
- 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.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Mountains 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, The Mountains, in The Listeners and Other Poems (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22569, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/de-la-mare-listeners/the-mountains.html, id L17097.
Form and metre
The Mountains is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 42% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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- loneA · me · overgrownA · secrecy
- 2 ABAB fleetA · windB · beatA · mindB
- 3 ABAB riseA · roseB · eyesA · snowsB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Still, and blanched, and cold, and lone, | 7 | ······· |
| The icy hills far off from me | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| With frosty ulys overgrown | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Stand in their sculptured secrecy. | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| No path of theirs the chamois fleet | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Treads, with a nostril to the wind; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| O'er their ice-marbled glaciers beat | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| No wings of eagles in my mind-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Yea, in my mind these mountains rise, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Their perils dyed with evening's rose; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And still my ghost sits at my eyes | 8 | ········ |
| And thirsts for their untroubled snows. | 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.