Unity
Space is ample, east and west,But two cannot go abreast,Cannot travel in it two:Yonder masterful cuckooCrowds every egg out of the nest,Quick or dead, except its own;A spell is laid on sod and stone,Night and Day were tampered with,Every quality and pithSurcharged and sultry with a powerThat works its will on age and hour.
Words in this poem
- yonder adv.
- At a distance, but within view. [OE. yonder, ýonder; cf. OD. ginder, Goth. jaindr there. Yond, adv.]
- masterful a.
- Inclined to play the master; domineering; imperious; arbitrary.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Unity 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, Unity, in Poems (1847), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12843, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/emerson-poems/unity.html, id L07489.
Form and metre
Unity is 11 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 55% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.7 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 27% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, 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 AABBACCDDEE westA · abreastA · twoB · cuckooB · nestA · ownC · stoneC · withD · pithD · powerE · hourE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Space is ample, east and west, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| But two cannot go abreast, | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Cannot travel in it two: | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Yonder masterful cuckoo | 7 | /˘/˘˘/· |
| Crowds every egg out of the nest, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Quick or dead, except its own; | 7 | ······· |
| A spell is laid on sod and stone, | 8 | ········ |
| Night and Day were tampered with, | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Every quality and pith | 8 | /˘˘/˘˘·· |
| Surcharged and sultry with a power | 9 | ˘/·/˘··/˘ |
| That works its will on age and hour. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
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.