Thought
I am not poor, but I am proud,Of one inalienable right,Above the envy of the crowd,--Thought's holy light.
Better it is than gems or gold,And oh! it cannot die,But thought will glow when the sun grows cold,And mix with Deity.
About this text
Thought 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, Thought, in Poems (1847), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12843, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/emerson-poems/thought.html, id L07577.
Form and metre
Thought is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in common measure.
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 ABAB proudA · rightB · crowdA · lightB
- 2 A-A- goldA · die · coldA · deity
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I am not poor, but I am proud, | 8 | ········ |
| Of one inalienable right, | 8 | ··˘/˘˘˘· |
| Above the envy of the crowd,-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Thought's holy light. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Better it is than gems or gold, | 8 | /˘······ |
| And oh! it cannot die, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| But thought will glow when the sun grows cold, | 9 | ········· |
| And mix with Deity. | 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.