Venus Urania
Is this thy Paphos,—the devoted placeWhere rests, in its own eventide, thy shrine?To thee not lone is solitude divineWhere love-dreams o’er thy waves each other chaseAnd melt into the passion of thy face!The twilight waters, dolphin-stained, are thine;The silvery depths and blue, moon-orbed, entwine,And in bright films thy rosy form embrace,—Girdling thy loins with heaven-spun draperyWove in the looms of thy resplendent sea.The columns point their shadows to the plainAnd ancient days are dialed o’er again;The floods remember: falling at thy feet,Upon the sands of time they ever beat.
Words in this poem
- eventide n.
- The time of evening; evening. [AS. æfentid. See Tide.]
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
- entwine v. t.
- To twine, twist, or wreathe together or round. [Pref. en- + twine. Cf. Intwine.]
- wove
- p. pr. & rare vb. n. of Weave.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Venus Urania is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poems of Thomas Gordon Hake, Project Gutenberg ebook #78947; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Gordon Hake, Venus Urania, in Poems (1870), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #78947, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hake-poems/venus-urania.html, id L23598.
Form and metre
Venus Urania is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See 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 ABBAABBA--CCDD placeA · shrineB · divineB · chaseA · faceA · thineB · entwineB · embraceA · drapery · sea · plainC · againC · feetD · beatD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Is this thy Paphos,—the devoted place | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Where rests, in its own eventide, thy shrine? | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| To thee not lone is solitude divine | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Where love-dreams o’er thy waves each other chase | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And melt into the passion of thy face! | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The twilight waters, dolphin-stained, are thine; | 10 | ·/·/˘/˘··· |
| The silvery depths and blue, moon-orbed, entwine, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| And in bright films thy rosy form embrace,— | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Girdling thy loins with heaven-spun drapery | 11 | /˘˘···/·/˘˘ |
| Wove in the looms of thy resplendent sea. | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| The columns point their shadows to the plain | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| And ancient days are dialed o’er again; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| The floods remember: falling at thy feet, | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| Upon the sands of time they ever beat. | 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.