The Shadow of a Flower
’Twas a dream of olden daysThat Art, by some strange power,The visionary form could raiseFrom the ashes of a flower.
That a shadow of the rose,By its own meek beauty bow’d,Might slowly, leaf by leaf, unclose,Like pictures in a cloud.
Or the hyacinth, to grace,As a second rainbow, spring;Of summer’s path a dreary trace,A fair, yet mournful thing!
For the glory of the bloomThat a flush around it shed,And the soul within, the rich perfume,Where were they? Fled, all fled!
Naught but the dim, faint lineTo speak of vanish’d hours.--Memory! what are joys of thine?--Shadows of buried flowers!
Words in this poem
- olden a.
- Old; ancient; as, the olden time.
- dreary a.
- Sorrowful; distressful. [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Shadow of a Flower is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Felicia Hemans, Project Gutenberg ebook #66785; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Felicia Hemans, The Shadow of a Flower, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/the-shadow-of-a-flower.html, id L19547.
Form and metre
The Shadow of a Flower is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 ABAB daysA · powerB · raiseA · flowerB
- 2 ABAB roseA · bow'dB · uncloseA · cloudB
- 3 ABAB graceA · springB · traceA · thingB
- 4 ABAB bloomA · shedB · perfumeA · fledB
- 5 ABAB lineA · hoursB · thineA · flowersB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| ’Twas a dream of olden days | 7 | ····/˘· |
| That Art, by some strange power, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| The visionary form could raise | 8 | ·/˘·˘··· |
| From the ashes of a flower. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| That a shadow of the rose, | 7 | ··/···· |
| By its own meek beauty bow’d, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Might slowly, leaf by leaf, unclose, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Like pictures in a cloud. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Or the hyacinth, to grace, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| As a second rainbow, spring; | 7 | ··/˘/·· |
| Of summer’s path a dreary trace, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| A fair, yet mournful thing! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| For the glory of the bloom | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| That a flush around it shed, | 7 | ······· |
| And the soul within, the rich perfume, | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| Where were they? Fled, all fled! | 6 | ······ |
| Naught but the dim, faint line | 6 | ······ |
| To speak of vanish’d hours.-- | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Memory! what are joys of thine? | 7 | /˘····· |
| --Shadows of buried flowers! | 7 | /··/˘/˘ |
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.