Primrose Flowers
I RODE through Eastnor woods to-day,And all the air did promise May,Did promise May till every treeFound voice to make much melody.
And oh, the primrose flowers! they glowedIn thousands all along the road,Spreading their magic through the grove,Like countless hoards of treasure-trove.
I said, “Perchance ’tis God who threwThese golden coins from out the blue,That with such bounty He might buyThe thoughts of one so poor as I!”
Words in this poem
- rode n.
- Redness; complexion. [See Rud.]
- countless a.
- Incapable of being counted; not ascertainable; innumerable.
- bounty n.
- Goodness, kindness; virtue; worth. [OE. bounte goodness, kindness, F. bonté, fr. L. bonitas, fr. bonus good, for older duonus; cf. Skr. duvas honor, respect.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Primrose Flowers 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, Primrose Flowers, in Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #50591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hall-three-counties/primrose-flowers.html, id L22677.
Form and metre
Primrose Flowers is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in iambic 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 AA-- dayA · mayA · tree · melody
- 2 AABB glowedA · roadA · groveB · troveB
- 3 AABB threwA · blueA · buyB · iB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I RODE through Eastnor woods to-day, | 8 | ········ |
| And all the air did promise May, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Did promise May till every tree | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Found voice to make much melody. | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And oh, the primrose flowers! they glowed | 8 | ···/·/·· |
| In thousands all along the road, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| Spreading their magic through the grove, | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| Like countless hoards of treasure-trove. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| I said, “Perchance ’tis God who threw | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| These golden coins from out the blue, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| That with such bounty He might buy | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The thoughts of one so poor as I!” | 8 | ········ |
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.