Sister Saint Luke
She lived shut in by flowers and treesAnd shade of gentle bigotries.On this side lay the trackless sea,On that the great world's mystery;But all unseen and all unguessedThey could not break upon her rest.The world's far splendours gleamed and flashed,Afar the wild seas foamed and dashed;But in her small, dull Paradise,Safe housed from rapture or surprise,Nor day nor night had power to frightThe peace of God that filled her eyes.
Words in this poem
- trackless a.
- Having no track; marked by no footsteps; untrodden; as, a trackless desert.
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sister Saint Luke is in the public domain. This text is taken from Pike County Ballads and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #6062; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Hay, Sister Saint Luke, in Pike County Ballads and Other Poems (1871), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6062, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hay-pike-county/sister-saint-luke.html, id L21593.
Form and metre
Sister Saint Luke is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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--BBCC-D-D treesA · bigotriesA · sea · mystery · unguessedB · restB · flashedC · dashedC · paradise · surpriseD · fright · eyesD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| She lived shut in by flowers and trees | 8 | ·····/·· |
| And shade of gentle bigotries. | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
| On this side lay the trackless sea, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| On that the great world's mystery; | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| But all unseen and all unguessed | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| They could not break upon her rest. | 8 | ········ |
| The world's far splendours gleamed and flashed, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Afar the wild seas foamed and dashed; | 8 | ˘/······ |
| But in her small, dull Paradise, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Safe housed from rapture or surprise, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Nor day nor night had power to fright | 8 | ·····/·· |
| The peace of God that filled her eyes. | 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.