On the Receipt of a Familiar Poem
To me, like hauntings of a vagrant breathFrom some far forest which I once have known,The perfume of this flower of verse is blown.Tho' seemingly soul-blossoms faint to death,Naught that with joy she bears e'er withereth.So, tho' the pregnant years have come and flown,Lives come and gone and altered like mine own,This poem comes to me a shibboleth:Brings sound of past communings to my ear,Turns round the tide of time and bears me backAlong an old and long untraversed way;Makes me forget this is a later year,Makes me tread o'er a reminiscent track,Half sad, half glad, to one forgotten day!
Words in this poem
- seemingly adv.
- In appearance; in show; in semblance; apparently; ostensibly.
- flown a.
- Flushed, inflated.
- shibboleth n.
- A word which was made the criterion by which to distinguish the Ephraimites from the Gileadites. The Ephraimites, not being able to pronounce sh, called the word sibboleth. See Judges xii. [Heb. shibboleth an ear of corn, or a stream, a flood.]
- reminiscent a.
- Recalling to mind, or capable of recalling to mind; having remembrance; reminding one of something. [L. reminiscens, -entis, p. pr. of reminisci to recall to mind, to recollect; pref.re- re + a word akin to mens mind, memini I remember. See Mind.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On the Receipt of a Familiar Poem 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, On the Receipt of a Familiar Poem, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/on-the-receipt-of-a-familiar-poem.html, id L00602.
Form and metre
On the Receipt of a Familiar Poem is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDECDE, the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 14% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other Italian sonnets, 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 ABBAABBACDECDE breathA · knownB · blownB · deathA · witherethA · flownB · ownB · shibbolethA · earC · backD · wayE · yearC · trackD · dayE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| To me, like hauntings of a vagrant breath | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| From some far forest which I once have known, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The perfume of this flower of verse is blown. | 10 | ·˘/··/···· |
| Tho' seemingly soul-blossoms faint to death, | 9 | ·/˘·/˘··· |
| Naught that with joy she bears e'er withereth. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| So, tho' the pregnant years have come and flown, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Lives come and gone and altered like mine own, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| This poem comes to me a shibboleth: | 9 | ·/····/˘· |
| Brings sound of past communings to my ear, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Turns round the tide of time and bears me back | 10 | ·········· |
| Along an old and long untraversed way; | 10 | ˘/········ |
| Makes me forget this is a later year, | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Makes me tread o'er a reminiscent track, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Half sad, half glad, to one forgotten day! | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
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.