Epigram
Because I am idolatrous and have besought,With grievous supplication and consuming prayer,The admirable image that my dreams have wroughtOut of her swan's neck and her dark, abundant hair:The jealous gods, who brook no worship save their own,Turned my live idol marble and her heart to stone.
Words in this poem
- admirable a.
- Fitted to excite wonder; wonderful; marvelous. [L. admirabilis: cf. F. admirable.]
- idol n.
- An image or representation of anything. [OE. idole, F. idole, L. idolum, fr. Gr. Wit, and cf. Eidolon.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Epigram is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems and Prose of Ernest Dowson, With a Memoir by Arthur Symons, Project Gutenberg ebook #8497; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ernest Dowson, Epigram, in The Poems of Ernest Dowson (1896–1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8497, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dowson-poems/epigram.html, id L01655.
Form and metre
Epigram is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCC. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.5 syllables.
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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 ABABCC besoughtA · prayerB · wroughtA · hairB · ownC · stoneC
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Because I am idolatrous and have besought, | 11 | ····˘/˘··˘/ |
| With grievous supplication and consuming prayer, | 12 | ·/˘·····˘/˘· |
| The admirable image that my dreams have wrought | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Out of her swan's neck and her dark, abundant hair: | 12 | ········˘/˘· |
| The jealous gods, who brook no worship save their own, | 12 | ·/˘····/˘··· |
| Turned my live idol marble and her heart to stone. | 12 | ···/˘/˘····· |
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.