Two Rivers
Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,Repeats the music of the rain;But sweeter rivers pulsing flitThrough thee, as thou through Concord Plain.
Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:The stream I love unbounded goesThrough flood and sea and firmament;Through light, through life, it forward flows.
I see the inundation sweet,I hear the spending of the streamThrough years, through men, through Nature fleet,Through love and thought, through power and dream.
Musketaquit, a goblin strong,Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;They lose their grief who hear his song,And where he winds is the day of day.
So forth and brighter fares my stream,--Who drink it shall not thirst again;No darkness stains its equal gleam.And ages drop in it like rain.
Words in this poem
- flit a.
- Nimble; quick; swift. See Fleet.
- pent p. p.
- Penned or shut up; confined; -- often with up. [From Pen, v. t.]
- firmament n.
- Fixed foundation; established basis. [L. firmamentum, fr. firmare to make firm: cf. F. firmament. See Firm, v. & a.]
- spending n.
- The act of expending; expenditure. Spending money, money set apart for extra (not necessary) personal expenses; pocket money.
- shard n.
- A plant; chard.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Two Rivers 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, Two Rivers, in Poems (1847), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12843, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/emerson-poems/two-rivers.html, id L07468.
Form and metre
Two Rivers is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 15% 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 ABAB musketaquitA · rainB · flitA · plainB
- 2 ABAB pentA · goesB · firmamentA · flowsB
- 3 ABAB sweetA · streamB · fleetA · dreamB
- 4 ABAB strongA · gayB · songA · dayB
- 5 ABAB streamA · againB · gleamA · rainB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thy summer voice, Musketaquit, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Repeats the music of the rain; | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| But sweeter rivers pulsing flit | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain. | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Thou in thy narrow banks art pent: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The stream I love unbounded goes | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Through flood and sea and firmament; | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Through light, through life, it forward flows. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I see the inundation sweet, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| I hear the spending of the stream | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Through years, through men, through Nature fleet, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Through love and thought, through power and dream. | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Musketaquit, a goblin strong, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Of shard and flint makes jewels gay; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| They lose their grief who hear his song, | 8 | ········ |
| And where he winds is the day of day. | 9 | ········· |
| So forth and brighter fares my stream,-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Who drink it shall not thirst again; | 8 | ······˘/ |
| No darkness stains its equal gleam. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And ages drop in it like rain. | 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.