Flute Song
Little scavenger away,touch not the door,beat not the portal down,cross not the sill,silent untilmy song, bright and shrill,breathes out its lay.
Little scavenger avaunt,tempt me with jeer and taunt,yet you will wait to-day;for it were surely illto mock and shout and revel;it were more fit to tellwith flutes and calathes,your mother’s praise.
Words in this poem
- avaunt v. t.
- To advance; to move forward; to elevate.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Flute Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Heliodora, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #62456; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: H.D., Flute Song, in Heliodora, and Other Poems (1924), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #62456, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hd-heliodora/flute-song.html, id L24308.
Form and metre
Flute Song is 15 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See 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 A--BBBA awayA · door · down · sillB · untilB · shrillB · layA
- 2 AA-BBB-- avauntA · tauntA · day · illB · revelB · tellB · calathes · praise
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Little scavenger away, | 7 | /˘/˘˘˘/ |
| touch not the door, | 4 | ···· |
| beat not the portal down, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| cross not the sill, | 4 | ···· |
| silent until | 4 | /˘·· |
| my song, bright and shrill, | 5 | ····· |
| breathes out its lay. | 4 | ···· |
| Little scavenger avaunt, | 7 | /˘/˘˘˘/ |
| tempt me with jeer and taunt, | 6 | ······ |
| yet you will wait to-day; | 6 | ······ |
| for it were surely ill | 6 | ···/˘· |
| to mock and shout and revel; | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| it were more fit to tell | 6 | ······ |
| with flutes and calathes, | 5 | ····· |
| your mother’s praise. | 4 | ·/˘· |
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.