Out of the Moon
Merely the moonlightPiercing the boughs of my may-tree,Falling upon my ferns;Only the nightTouching my ferns with silver bloomOf sea-flowers here in the sleeping city--And suddenly the imagination burnsWith knowledge of many a dark significant doomOut of antiquity,Sung to hushed halls by troubadoursWho knew the ways of the heart because they had seenThe moonlight washing the garden’s deeper greenTo silver flowers,Falling with tidings out of the moon, as nowIt falls on the ferns under my may-tree bough.
About this text
Out of the Moon 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, Out of the Moon, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/out-of-the-moon.html, id L23100.
Form and metre
Out of the Moon is 15 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
See other poems in iambic 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 A-BAC-BC--DD-EE moonlightA · tree · fernsB · nightA · bloomC · city · burnsB · doomC · antiquity · troubadours · seenD · greenD · flowers · nowE · boughE
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Merely the moonlight | 5 | /˘·/· |
| Piercing the boughs of my may-tree, | 8 | /˘······ |
| Falling upon my ferns; | 6 | /˘···· |
| Only the night | 4 | /˘·· |
| Touching my ferns with silver bloom | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| Of sea-flowers here in the sleeping city-- | 10 | ··/···/˘/˘ |
| And suddenly the imagination burns | 10 | ·/˘·˘·˘/˘· |
| With knowledge of many a dark significant doom | 11 | ·/˘·/··˘/˘· |
| Out of antiquity, | 6 | ··˘/˘˘ |
| Sung to hushed halls by troubadours | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Who knew the ways of the heart because they had seen | 12 | ············ |
| The moonlight washing the garden’s deeper green | 11 | ·/·/˘·/˘/˘· |
| To silver flowers, | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| Falling with tidings out of the moon, as now | 11 | /˘·/˘······ |
| It falls on the ferns under my may-tree bough. | 11 | ··········· |
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.