Reserve
YOU that are dear, O you above the rest!Forgive him his evasive moods and cold;The absence that belied him oft of old,The war upon sad speech, the desperate jest,And pity’s wildest gush but half-confessed,Forgive him! Let your gentle memories holdSome written word once tender and once bold,Or service done shamefacedly at best,Whereby to judge him. All his days he spent,Like one who with an angel wrestled well,O’ermastering Love with show of light disdain;And whatsoe’er your spirits underwent,He, wounded for you, worked no miracleTo make his heart’s allegiance wholly plain.
Words in this poem
- evasive a.
- Tending to evade, or marked by evasion; elusive; shuffling; avoiding by artifice. [Cf. F. évasif. See Evade.]
- desperate a.
- Without hope; given to despair; hopeless. [L. desperatus, p. p. of desperare. See Despair, and cf. Desperado.]
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Reserve is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs at the Start, Project Gutenberg ebook #53087; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Louise Imogen Guiney, Reserve, in Songs at the Start (1884), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #53087, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/guiney-songs/reserve.html, id L11207.
Form and metre
Reserve is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDECDE, the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 14% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other Italian sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABBAABBACDECDE restA · coldB · oldB · jestA · confessedA · holdB · boldB · bestA · spentC · wellD · disdainE · underwentC · miracleD · plainE
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| YOU that are dear, O you above the rest! | 10 | ·········· |
| Forgive him his evasive moods and cold; | 10 | ˘/··˘/˘··· |
| The absence that belied him oft of old, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| The war upon sad speech, the desperate jest, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And pity’s wildest gush but half-confessed, | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| Forgive him! Let your gentle memories hold | 10 | ˘/···/˘/˘· |
| Some written word once tender and once bold, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Or service done shamefacedly at best, | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| Whereby to judge him. All his days he spent, | 10 | ·········· |
| Like one who with an angel wrestled well, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| O’ermastering Love with show of light disdain; | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| And whatsoe’er your spirits underwent, | 9 | ····/˘·˘/ |
| He, wounded for you, worked no miracle | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| To make his heart’s allegiance wholly plain. | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘· |
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.