The Three Cherry Trees
There were three cherry trees once,Grew in a garden all shady;And there for delight of so gladsome a sight,Walked a most beautiful lady,Dreamed a most beautiful lady.
Birds in those branches did sing,Blackbird and throstle and linnet,But she walking there was by far the most fair--Lovelier than all else within it,Blackbird and throstle and linnet.
But blossoms to berries do come,All hanging on stalks light and slender,And one long summer's day charmed that lady away,With vows sweet and merry and tender;A lover with voice low and tender.
Moss and lichen the green branches deck;Weeds nod in its paths green and shady:Yet a light footstep seems there to wander in dreams,The ghost of that beautiful lady,That happy and beautiful lady.
Words in this poem
- gladsome a.
- Pleased; joyful; cheerful.
- throstle n.
- The song thrush. See under Song. [OE. throsel, AS. , ; akin to MHG. trostel, G. drossel, Icel. , Sw. trast, Lith. strazdas, L. turdus. *238. Cf. Thrush the bird.]
- 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 Three Cherry Trees 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 Three Cherry Trees, in The Listeners and Other Poems (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22569, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/de-la-mare-listeners/the-three-cherry-trees.html, id L17063.
Form and metre
The Three Cherry Trees is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 82% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.8 syllables. 11 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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-AA once · shadyA · sight · ladyA · ladyA
- 2 -A-AA sing · linnetA · fair · itA · linnetA
- 3 -A-AA come · slenderA · away · tenderA · tenderA
- 4 -A-AA deck · shadyA · dreams · ladyA · ladyA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There were three cherry trees once, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Grew in a garden all shady; | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| And there for delight of so gladsome a sight, | 11 | ···˘/··/˘·· |
| Walked a most beautiful lady, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Dreamed a most beautiful lady. | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Birds in those branches did sing, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Blackbird and throstle and linnet, | 8 | /˘·/˘·/˘ |
| But she walking there was by far the most fair-- | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| Lovelier than all else within it, | 9 | ········· |
| Blackbird and throstle and linnet. | 8 | /˘·/˘·/˘ |
| But blossoms to berries do come, | 8 | ·/˘·/˘·· |
| All hanging on stalks light and slender, | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| And one long summer's day charmed that lady away, | 12 | ···/˘···/˘˘/ |
| With vows sweet and merry and tender; | 9 | ····/˘·/˘ |
| A lover with voice low and tender. | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| Moss and lichen the green branches deck; | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| Weeds nod in its paths green and shady: | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Yet a light footstep seems there to wander in dreams, | 12 | ···/····/˘·· |
| The ghost of that beautiful lady, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| That happy and beautiful lady. | 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.