The Plains
How one loves themThese wide horizons; whether Desert or Sea,--Vague and vast and infinite; faintly clear--Surely, hid in the far away, unknown "There,"Lie the things so longed for and found not, found not, Here.
Only where some passionate, level landStretches itself in reaches of golden sand,Only where the sea line is joined to the sky-line, clear,Beyond the curve of ripple or white foamed crest,--Shall the weary eyesDistressed by the broken skies,--Broken by Minaret, mountain, or towering tree,--Shall the weary eyes be assuaged,--be assuaged,--and rest.
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,]
- minaret n.
- A slender, lofty tower attached to a mosque and surrounded by one or more projecting balconies, from which the summon to prayer is cried by the muezzin. [Sp. minarete, Ar. manarat lamp, lantern, lighthouse, turret, fr. nar to shine.]
- towering a.
- Very high; elevated; rising aloft; as, a towering height.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Plains is in the public domain. This text is taken from India's Love Lyrics, Project Gutenberg ebook #8197; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Laurence Hope, The Plains, in India's Love Lyrics (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8197, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hope-india/the-plains.html, id L22599.
Form and metre
The Plains is 13 lines in 2 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 --AAA them · sea · clearA · thereA · hereA
- 2 AA-BCC-B landA · sandA · clear · crestB · eyesC · skiesC · tree · restB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| How one loves them | 4 | ···· |
| These wide horizons; whether Desert or Sea,-- | 11 | ··˘/˘··/˘·· |
| Vague and vast and infinite; faintly clear-- | 9 | ····/˘/˘· |
| Surely, hid in the far away, unknown "There," | 11 | /˘····˘/˘/· |
| Lie the things so longed for and found not, found not, Here. | 12 | ············ |
| Only where some passionate, level land | 9 | /˘··/˘/˘· |
| Stretches itself in reaches of golden sand, | 11 | /˘˘/·/˘·/˘· |
| Only where the sea line is joined to the sky-line, clear, | 13 | /˘··········· |
| Beyond the curve of ripple or white foamed crest,-- | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| Shall the weary eyes | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Distressed by the broken skies,-- | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| Broken by Minaret, mountain, or towering tree,-- | 12 | /˘··˘//˘·/˘· |
| Shall the weary eyes be assuaged,--be assuaged,--and rest. | 13 | ··/˘··˘/·˘/·· |
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.