The Shade
Darker than night; and oh, much darker, she,Whose eyes in deep night darkness gaze on me.No stars surround her; yet the moon seems hidAfar somewhere, beneath that narrow lid.She darkens against the darkness; and her faceOnly by adding thought to thought I trace,Limned shadowily: O dream, return once moreTo gloomy Hades and the whispering shore!
Words in this poem
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- somewhere adv.
- In some place unknown or not specified; in one place or another.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Shade 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 Shade, in The Listeners and Other Poems (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22569, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/de-la-mare-listeners/the-shade.html, id L17084.
Form and metre
The Shade is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 79% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCCDD sheA · meA · hidB · lidB · faceC · traceC · moreD · shoreD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Darker than night; and oh, much darker, she, | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Whose eyes in deep night darkness gaze on me. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| No stars surround her; yet the moon seems hid | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Afar somewhere, beneath that narrow lid. | 10 | ˘//····/˘· |
| She darkens against the darkness; and her face | 11 | ·/˘···/˘··· |
| Only by adding thought to thought I trace, | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Limned shadowily: O dream, return once more | 11 | ·······˘/·· |
| To gloomy Hades and the whispering shore! | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
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.