Thoughts Connected with Trees
Trees, gracious trees!--how rich a gift ye are,Crown of the earth! to human hearts and eyes!How doth the thought of home, in lands afar,Link’d with your forms and kindly whisperings rise!How the whole picture of a childhood liesOft midst your boughs forgotten, buried deep!Till, gazing through them up the summer skies,As hush’d we stand, a breeze perchance may creep,And old, sweet leaf-sounds reach the inner worldWhere memory coils--and lo! at once unfurl’d,The past, a glowing scroll, before our sightSpreads clear; while, gushing from their long-seal’d urn,Young thoughts, pure dreams, undoubting prayers return,And a lost mother’s eye gives back its holy light.
Words in this poem
- 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.]
- childhood n.
- The state of being a child; the time in which persons are children; the condition or time from infancy to puberty. [AS. cildhad; cild child + -had. See Child, and hood.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Thoughts Connected with Trees 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, Thoughts Connected with Trees, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/thoughts-connected-with-trees.html, id L19804.
Form and metre
Thoughts Connected with Trees is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABBCBCDDEFFE. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See 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 ABABBCBCDDEFFE areA · eyesB · afarA · riseB · liesB · deepC · skiesB · creepC · worldD · unfurl'dD · sightE · urnF · returnF · lightE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Trees, gracious trees!--how rich a gift ye are, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Crown of the earth! to human hearts and eyes! | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| How doth the thought of home, in lands afar, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Link’d with your forms and kindly whisperings rise! | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| How the whole picture of a childhood lies | 10 | ···/˘··/·· |
| Oft midst your boughs forgotten, buried deep! | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘· |
| Till, gazing through them up the summer skies, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| As hush’d we stand, a breeze perchance may creep, | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| And old, sweet leaf-sounds reach the inner world | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Where memory coils--and lo! at once unfurl’d, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| The past, a glowing scroll, before our sight | 10 | ···/˘···/· |
| Spreads clear; while, gushing from their long-seal’d urn, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Young thoughts, pure dreams, undoubting prayers return, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| And a lost mother’s eye gives back its holy light. | 12 | ···/˘····/˘· |
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.