Growth
I watched the glory of her childhood change,Half-sorrowful to find the child I knew,(Loved long ago in lily-time)Become a maid, mysterious and strange,With fair, pure eyes--dear eyes, but not the eyes I knewOf old, in the olden time!
Till on my doubting soul the ancient goodOf her dear childhood in the new disguiseDawned, and I hastened to adoreThe glory of her waking maidenhood,And found the old tenderness within her deepening eyes,But kinder than before.
Words in this poem
- childhood n.
- The state of being a child; the time in which persons are children; the condition or time from infancy to puberty. [AS. cildhad; cild child + -had. See Child, and hood.]
- olden a.
- Old; ancient; as, the olden time.
- adore v. t.
- To worship with profound reverence; to pay divine honors to; to honor as deity or as divine. [OE. aouren, anouren, adoren, OF. aorer, adorer, F. adorer, fr. L. adorare; ad + orare to speak, pray, os, oris, mouth. In OE. confused with honor, the French pr]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Growth 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, Growth, in The Poems of Ernest Dowson (1896–1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8497, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dowson-poems/growth.html, id L01628.
Form and metre
Growth is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABCABC. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.7 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABCABC changeA · knewB · timeC · strangeA · knewB · timeC
- 2 ABCABC goodA · disguiseB · adoreC · maidenhoodA · eyesB · beforeC
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I watched the glory of her childhood change, | 10 | ···/˘··/·· |
| Half-sorrowful to find the child I knew, | 10 | ·/˘˘······ |
| (Loved long ago in lily-time) | 9 | ·˘·˘/·/˘· |
| Become a maid, mysterious and strange, | 10 | ˘/··˘/˘˘·· |
| With fair, pure eyes--dear eyes, but not the eyes I knew | 12 | ············ |
| Of old, in the olden time! | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Till on my doubting soul the ancient good | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Of her dear childhood in the new disguise | 10 | ···/····˘/ |
| Dawned, and I hastened to adore | 10 | ·˘··/˘˘·˘/ |
| The glory of her waking maidenhood, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| And found the old tenderness within her deepening eyes, | 12 | ····/˘···/˘· |
| But kinder than before. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
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.