Verses
You are my God, and I would fain adore YouWith sweet and secret rites of other days.Burn scented oil in silver lamps before You,Pour perfume on Your feet with prayer and praise.
Yet are we one; Your gracious condescensionGranted, and grants, the loveliness I crave.One, in the perfect sense of Eastern mention,"Gold and the Bracelet, Water and the Wave."
Words in this poem
- fain v. t.
- To be glad ; to wish or desire.
- adore v. t.
- To worship with profound reverence; to pay divine honors to; to honor as deity or as divine. [OE. aouren, anouren, adoren, OF. aorer, adorer, F. adorer, fr. L. adorare; ad + orare to speak, pray, os, oris, mouth. In OE. confused with honor, the French pr]
- condescension n.
- The act of condescending; voluntary descent from one's rank or dignity in intercourse with an inferior; courtesy toward inferiors. [L. condescensio.]
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
- crave v. t.
- To ask with earnestness or importunity; to ask with submission or humility; to beg; to entreat; to beseech; to implore. [AS. crafian; akin to Icel. krefia, Sw. kr, Dan. kr.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Verses 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, Verses, in India's Love Lyrics (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8197, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hope-india/verses.html, id L22571.
Form and metre
Verses is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 ABAB youA · daysB · youA · praiseB
- 2 ABAB condescensionA · craveB · mentionA · waveB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| You are my God, and I would fain adore You | 11 | ········˘/· |
| With sweet and secret rites of other days. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Burn scented oil in silver lamps before You, | 11 | ·/˘··/˘···· |
| Pour perfume on Your feet with prayer and praise. | 10 | ·˘/······· |
| Yet are we one; Your gracious condescension | 11 | ·····/˘·˘/˘ |
| Granted, and grants, the loveliness I crave. | 10 | /˘···/˘˘·· |
| One, in the perfect sense of Eastern mention, | 11 | ···/···/˘/˘ |
| "Gold and the Bracelet, Water and the Wave." | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
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.