Promise
In countless upward-striving wavesThe moon-drawn tide-wave strives;In thousand far-transplanted graftsThe parent fruit survives;So, in the new-born millions,The perfect Adam lives.Not less are summer mornings dearTo every child they wake,And each with novel life his sphereFills for his proper sake.
Words in this poem
- countless a.
- Incapable of being counted; not ascertainable; innumerable.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Promise is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Household Edition, Project Gutenberg ebook #12843; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Promise, in Poems (1847), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12843, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/emerson-poems/promise.html, id L07499.
Form and metre
Promise is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 40% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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-A-ABCBC waves · strivesA · grafts · survivesA · millions · livesA · dearB · wakeC · sphereB · sakeC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In countless upward-striving waves | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| The moon-drawn tide-wave strives; | 6 | ······ |
| In thousand far-transplanted grafts | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| The parent fruit survives; | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| So, in the new-born millions, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| The perfect Adam lives. | 6 | ·/·/˘· |
| Not less are summer mornings dear | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| To every child they wake, | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
| And each with novel life his sphere | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Fills for his proper sake. | 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.