Rome Building a New Street in the Ancient Quarter
THESE numbered cliffs and gnarls of masonryOutskeleton Time’s central city, Rome;Whereof each arch, entablature, and domeLies bare in all its gaunt anatomy.
And cracking frieze and rotten metopeExpress, as though they were an open tomeTop-lined with caustic monitory gnome;“Dunces, Learn here to spell Humanity!”
And yet within these ruins’ very shadeThe singing workmen shape and set and joinTheir frail new mansion’s stuccoed cove and quoinWith no apparent sense that years abrade,Though each rent wall their feeble works invadeOnce shamed all such in power of pier and groin.
Words in this poem
- whereof adv.
- Of which; of whom; formerly, also, with which; -- used relatively.
- gaunt a.
- Attenuated, as with fasting or suffering; lean; meager; pinched and grim. [Cf. Norw. gand a thin pointed stick, a tall and thin man, and W. gwan weak.]
- metope n.
- The space between two triglyphs of the Doric frieze, which, among the ancients, was often adorned with carved work. See Illust.
- monitory a.
- Giving admonition; instructing by way of caution; warning. [L. monitorius.]
- gnome n.
- An imaginary being, supposed by the Rosicrucians to inhabit the inner parts of the earth, and to be the guardian of mines, quarries, etc. [F. gnome, prob. fr. Gr. i. e., of the treasures in the inner parts of the earth, or fr. Know.]
- mansion n.
- A dwelling place, -- whether a part or whole of a house or other shelter. [OF. mansion, F. maison, fr. L. mansio a staying, remaining, a dwelling, habitation, fr. manere, mansum, to stay, dwell; akin to Gr. Manse, Manor, Menagerie, Men]
- cove v. t.
- To brood, cover, over, or sit over, as birds their eggs. [CF. F. couver, It. covare. See Covey.]
- quoin n.
- Originally, a solid exterior angle, as of a building; now, commonly, one of the selected pieces of material by which the corner is marked. [See Coin, and cf. Coigne.]
- abrade v. t.
- To rub or wear off; to waste or wear away by friction; as, to abrade rocks. Lyell. [L. abradere, abrasum, to scrape off; ab + radere to scrape. See Rase, Raze.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Rome Building a New Street in the Ancient Quarter is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of the Past and the Present, Project Gutenberg ebook #3168; 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 Hardy, Rome Building a New Street in the Ancient Quarter, in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3168, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-past-and-present/rome-building-a-new-street-in-the-ancient-quarter.html, id L19081.
Form and metre
Rome Building a New Street in the Ancient Quarter is 14 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 -AA- masonry · romeA · domeA · anatomy
- 2 -AA- metope · tomeA · gnomeA · humanity
- 3 ABBAAB shadeA · joinB · quoinB · abradeA · invadeA · groinB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| THESE numbered cliffs and gnarls of masonry | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| Outskeleton Time’s central city, Rome; | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Whereof each arch, entablature, and dome | 10 | ····˘/˘˘·· |
| Lies bare in all its gaunt anatomy. | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| And cracking frieze and rotten metope | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| Express, as though they were an open tome | 10 | ˘/·····/˘· |
| Top-lined with caustic monitory gnome; | 10 | ···/˘/˘˘˘· |
| “Dunces, Learn here to spell Humanity!” | 9 | ·····˘/˘˘ |
| And yet within these ruins’ very shade | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| The singing workmen shape and set and join | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Their frail new mansion’s stuccoed cove and quoin | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| With no apparent sense that years abrade, | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
| Though each rent wall their feeble works invade | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Once shamed all such in power of pier and groin. | 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.