The Song of the Secret
Where is beauty?Gone, gone:The cold winds have taken itWith their faint moan;The white stars have shaken it,Trembling down,Into the pathless deeps of the sea.Gone, goneIs beauty from me.
The clear naked flowerIs faded and dead;The green-leafed willow,Drooping her head,Whispers low to the shadeOf her boughs in the stream,Sighing a beauty,Secret as dream.
Words in this poem
- pathless a.
- Having no beaten path or way; untrodden; impenetrable; as, pathless woods.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Song of the Secret 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, The Song of the Secret, in Peacock Pie (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3753, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/de-la-mare-peacock-pie/the-song-of-the-secret.html, id L12629.
Form and metre
The Song of the Secret is 17 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.1 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 24% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 -AB-B-CAC beauty · goneA · itB · moan · itB · down · seaC · goneA · meC
- 2 -A-A-B-B flower · deadA · willow · headA · shade · streamB · beauty · dreamB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Where is beauty? | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Gone, gone: | 2 | ·· |
| The cold winds have taken it | 7 | ····/˘· |
| With their faint moan; | 4 | ···· |
| The white stars have shaken it, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Trembling down, | 4 | /˘˘· |
| Into the pathless deeps of the sea. | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Gone, gone | 2 | ·· |
| Is beauty from me. | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| The clear naked flower | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Is faded and dead; | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| The green-leafed willow, | 6 | ···˘/· |
| Drooping her head, | 4 | /˘·· |
| Whispers low to the shade | 6 | /˘···· |
| Of her boughs in the stream, | 6 | ······ |
| Sighing a beauty, | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| Secret as dream. | 4 | /˘·· |
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.