Alice
Know you, winds that blow your courseDown the verdant valleys,That somewhere you must, perforce,Kiss the brow of Alice?When her gentle face you find,Kiss it softly, naughty wind.
Roses waving fair and sweetThro' the garden alleys,Grow into a glory meetFor the eye of Alice;Let the wind your offering bearOf sweet perfume, faint and rare.
Lily holding crystal dewIn your pure white chalice,Nature kind hath fashioned youLike the soul of Alice;It of purest white is wrought,Filled with gems of crystal thought.
Words in this poem
- somewhere adv.
- In some place unknown or not specified; in one place or another.
- perforce v. t.
- To force; to compel.
- naughty a.
- Having little or nothing.
- chalice n.
- A cup or bowl; especially, the cup used in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. [OR. chalis, calice, OF. chalice, calice, F. calice, fr. L. calix, akin to Gr. helmet. Cf. Calice, Calyx.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Alice is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Project Gutenberg ebook #18338; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Paul Laurence Dunbar, Alice, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/alice.html, id L00524.
Form and metre
Alice is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.8 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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-A-BB courseA · valleys · perforceA · alice · findB · windB
- 2 A-A-BB sweetA · alleys · meetA · alice · bearB · rareB
- 3 ABABCC dewA · chaliceB · youA · aliceB · wroughtC · thoughtC
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Know you, winds that blow your course | 7 | ······· |
| Down the verdant valleys, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| That somewhere you must, perforce, | 7 | ·/···˘/ |
| Kiss the brow of Alice? | 6 | ····/˘ |
| When her gentle face you find, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Kiss it softly, naughty wind. | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Roses waving fair and sweet | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Thro' the garden alleys, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Grow into a glory meet | 7 | ····/˘· |
| For the eye of Alice; | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Let the wind your offering bear | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Of sweet perfume, faint and rare. | 7 | ··˘/··· |
| Lily holding crystal dew | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| In your pure white chalice, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Nature kind hath fashioned you | 8 | /˘··/˘˘· |
| Like the soul of Alice; | 6 | ····/˘ |
| It of purest white is wrought, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Filled with gems of crystal thought. | 8 | ·˘···/˘· |
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.