Moonrise
Will you glimmer on the sea?will you fling your spear-headon the shore?what note shall we pitch?we have a song,on the bank we share our arrows;the loosed string tells our note:
O flight,bring her swiftly to our song.she is great,we measure her by the pine trees.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Moonrise 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., Moonrise, in Heliodora, and Other Poems (1924), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #62456, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hd-heliodora/moonrise.html, id L24314.
Form and metre
Moonrise is 11 lines in 2 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic trimeter.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Will you glimmer on the sea? | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| will you fling your spear-head | 6 | ······ |
| on the shore? | 3 | ··· |
| what note shall we pitch? | 5 | ····· |
| we have a song, | 4 | ···· |
| on the bank we share our arrows; | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| the loosed string tells our note: | 7 | ····/˘· |
| O flight, | 2 | ·· |
| bring her swiftly to our song. | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| she is great, | 3 | ··· |
| we measure her by the pine trees. | 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.