Comparisons
A FIELD of scented cloverThat honey-bees hang over,A hazel-wood in Spring,Where thrush and robin sing.A stream that seaward flows,Rejoicing as it goes,A little tower where dwellsThe sound of happy bells.A morning fresh and blue,Flower-decked, and wet with dew,All these my love she minds me of—And other sweet things too.
Words in this poem
- seaward a.
- Directed or situated toward the sea. Donne.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Comparisons is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #50591; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Radclyffe Hall, Comparisons, in Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #50591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hall-three-counties/comparisons.html, id L22703.
Form and metre
Comparisons is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 83% of the lines. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, 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 AABBCCDDEE-E cloverA · overA · springB · singB · flowsC · goesC · dwellsD · bellsD · blueE · dewE · of · tooE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A FIELD of scented clover | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| That honey-bees hang over, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| A hazel-wood in Spring, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Where thrush and robin sing. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| A stream that seaward flows, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Rejoicing as it goes, | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| A little tower where dwells | 6 | ·/˘/·· |
| The sound of happy bells. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| A morning fresh and blue, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Flower-decked, and wet with dew, | 6 | /····· |
| All these my love she minds me of— | 8 | ········ |
| And other sweet things too. | 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.