Mistletoe
Sitting under the mistletoe(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),One last candle burning low,All the sleepy dancers gone,Just one candle burning on,Shadows lurking everywhere:Some one came, and kissed me there.
Tired I was; my head would goNodding under the mistletoe(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),No footsteps came, no voice, but only,Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,Stooped in the still and shadowy airLips unseen - and kissed me there.
Words in this poem
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mistletoe is in the public domain. This text is taken from Peacock Pie, a Book of Rhymes, Project Gutenberg ebook #3753; 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, Mistletoe, in Peacock Pie (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3753, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/de-la-mare-peacock-pie/mistletoe.html, id L12587.
Form and metre
Mistletoe is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AAABBCC. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 29% 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 AAABBCC mistletoeA · mistletoeA · lowA · goneB · onB · everywhereC · thereC
- 2 AAABBCC goA · mistletoeA · mistletoeA · onlyB · lonelyB · airC · thereC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sitting under the mistletoe | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| (Pale-green, fairy mistletoe), | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| One last candle burning low, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| All the sleepy dancers gone, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Just one candle burning on, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Shadows lurking everywhere: | 7 | /·/˘/˘· |
| Some one came, and kissed me there. | 7 | ······· |
| Tired I was; my head would go | 7 | /······ |
| Nodding under the mistletoe | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| (Pale-green, fairy mistletoe), | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| No footsteps came, no voice, but only, | 9 | ·/·····/˘ |
| Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Stooped in the still and shadowy air | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Lips unseen - and kissed me there. | 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.