The Moon upon Her Watch-Tower
The moon upon her watch-towerWith her golden eyeGuarded the quartersEast and West the sky.Just as midnightWas stepping pastOne drew his first breath,One drew his last.The moon upon her watch-towerRang a soundless bell--It might have been for welcome,It might have been farewell.
Words in this poem
- soundless a.
- Not capable of being sounded or fathomed; unfathomable.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Moon upon Her Watch-Tower is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #56244; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Eleanor Farjeon, The Moon upon Her Watch-Tower, in Sonnets and Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56244, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/farjeon-sonnets-poems/the-moon-upon-her-watch-tower.html, id L21965.
Form and metre
The Moon upon Her Watch-Tower is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 AB-B-C-CAD-D towerA · eyeB · quarters · skyB · midnight · pastC · breath · lastC · towerA · bellD · welcome · farewellD
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The moon upon her watch-tower | 7 | ······/ |
| With her golden eye | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Guarded the quarters | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| East and West the sky. | 5 | ····· |
| Just as midnight | 4 | ··/· |
| Was stepping past | 4 | ·/˘· |
| One drew his first breath, | 5 | ····· |
| One drew his last. | 4 | ···· |
| The moon upon her watch-tower | 7 | ······/ |
| Rang a soundless bell-- | 5 | ··/˘· |
| It might have been for welcome, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| It might have been farewell. | 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.