Deer
Shy in their herding dwell the fallow deer.They are spirits of wild sense. Nobody nearComes upon their pastures. There a life they live,Of sufficient beauty, phantom, fugitive,Treading as in jungles free leopards do,Printless as evelight, instant as dew.The great kine are patient, and home-coming sheepKnow our bidding. The fallow deer keepDelicate and far their counsels wild,Never to be folded reconciledTo the spoiling hand as the poor flocks are:Lightfoot, and swift, and unfamiliar,These you may not hinder, unconfinedBeautiful flocks of the mind.
Words in this poem
- dwell v. i.
- To delay; to linger. [OE. dwellen, dwelien, to err, linger, AS. dwellan to deceive, hinder, delay, dwelian to err; akin to Icel. dvelja to delay, tarry, Sw. dväljas to dwell, Dan. dv]
- nobody n.
- No person; no one; not anybody. [No, a. + body.]
- printless a.
- Making no imprint.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Deer is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, 1908-1919, Project Gutenberg ebook #51575; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Drinkwater, Deer, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/deer.html, id L23137.
Form and metre
Deer is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 86% of the lines. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 AABBCCDDEE--FF deerA · nearA · liveB · fugitiveB · doC · dewC · sheepD · keepD · wildE · reconciledE · are · unfamiliar · unconfinedF · mindF
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Shy in their herding dwell the fallow deer. | 10 | ···/˘··/·· |
| They are spirits of wild sense. Nobody near | 11 | ··/˘···/··· |
| Comes upon their pastures. There a life they live, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| Of sufficient beauty, phantom, fugitive, | 10 | ·˘/˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| Treading as in jungles free leopards do, | 10 | /˘··/˘·/˘· |
| Printless as evelight, instant as dew. | 10 | /˘····/˘·· |
| The great kine are patient, and home-coming sheep | 11 | ····/˘··/˘· |
| Know our bidding. The fallow deer keep | 9 | ·//˘·/··· |
| Delicate and far their counsels wild, | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| Never to be folded reconciled | 8 | /··/˘/˘· |
| To the spoiling hand as the poor flocks are: | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| Lightfoot, and swift, and unfamiliar, | 9 | /·····˘/˘ |
| These you may not hinder, unconfined | 9 | ····/˘·˘/ |
| Beautiful flocks of the mind. | 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.