Time Passes
There was nought in the ValleyBut a Tower of Ivory,Its base enwreathed with redFlowers that at eveningCaught the sun's crimsonAs to Ocean low he sped.
Lucent and lovelyIt stood in the morningUnder a trackless hill;With snows eternalMuffling its summit,And silence ineffable.
Sighing of solitudeWinds from the cold heightsHaunted its yellowing stone;At noon its shadowStretched athwart cedarsWhence every bird was flown.
Its stair was broken,Its starlit walls wereFretted; its flowers shoneWide at the portal,Full-blown and fading,Their last faint fragrance gone.
And on high in its lanternA shape of the livingWatched o'er a shoreless sea,From a Tower rottingWith age and weakness,Once lovely as ivory.
Words in this poem
- lucent a.
- Shining; bright; resplendent. [L. lucens, p. pr. of lucere to shine, fr. lux, lucis, light.]
- trackless a.
- Having no track; marked by no footsteps; untrodden; as, a trackless desert.
- haunted a.
- Inhabited by, or subject to the visits of, apparitions; frequented by a ghost.
- yellowing n.
- The act or process of making yellow.
- flown a.
- Flushed, inflated.
- starlit a.
- Lighted by the stars; starlight.
- fading n.
- An Irish dance; also, the burden of a song.
- shoreless a.
- Having no shore or coast; of indefinite or unlimited extent; as, a shoreless ocean. Young.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Time Passes 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, Time Passes, in The Listeners and Other Poems (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22569, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/de-la-mare-listeners/time-passes.html, id L17103.
Form and metre
Time Passes is 30 lines in 5 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.8 syllables. 18 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 53% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 valley · ivory · redA · evening · crimson · spedA
- 2 --AA-A lovely · morning · hillA · eternalA · summit · ineffableA
- 3 --A--A solitude · heights · stoneA · shadow · cedars · flownA
- 4 A-A--- brokenA · were · shoneA · portal · fading · gone
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There was nought in the Valley | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| But a Tower of Ivory, | 7 | ··/·/˘˘ |
| Its base enwreathed with red | 6 | ······ |
| Flowers that at evening | 6 | /˘··/˘ |
| Caught the sun's crimson | 5 | ···/˘ |
| As to Ocean low he sped. | 6 | ··/··· |
| Lucent and lovely | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| It stood in the morning | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Under a trackless hill; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| With snows eternal | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
| Muffling its summit, | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| And silence ineffable. | 7 | ·/˘˘/˘˘ |
| Sighing of solitude | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Winds from the cold heights | 5 | ····· |
| Haunted its yellowing stone; | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| At noon its shadow | 5 | ···/· |
| Stretched athwart cedars | 6 | ·˘˘//˘ |
| Whence every bird was flown. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Its stair was broken, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Its starlit walls were | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Fretted; its flowers shone | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Wide at the portal, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Full-blown and fading, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Their last faint fragrance gone. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And on high in its lantern | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| A shape of the living | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Watched o'er a shoreless sea, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| From a Tower rotting | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| With age and weakness, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Once lovely as ivory. | 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.