Apostrophe to Nature
O Sun! thou countenance divine!Wild flowers of the glen,Caves swoll'n with shadow, where sunshineHas pierced not, far from men;Ye sacred hills and antique rocks,Ye oaks that worsted time,Ye limpid lakes which snow-slide shocksHurl up in storms sublime;And sky above, unruflfed blue,Chaste rills that alway ranFrom stainless source a course still true,What think ye of this man?
Words in this poem
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
- stainless a.
- Free from stain; immaculate.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Apostrophe to Nature is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, the various hands translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Victor Hugo, Apostrophe to Nature, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/apostrophe-to-nature.html, id L26795.
Form and metre
Apostrophe to Nature is 12 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEF. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABABCDCDEFEF divineA · glenB · sunshineA · menB · rocksC · timeD · shocksC · sublimeD · blueE · ranF · trueE · manF
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O Sun! thou countenance divine! | 8 | ···/˘˘˘/ |
| Wild flowers of the glen, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Caves swoll'n with shadow, where sunshine | 8 | ···/··/· |
| Has pierced not, far from men; | 6 | ······ |
| Ye sacred hills and antique rocks, | 8 | ·/˘··˘/· |
| Ye oaks that worsted time, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Ye limpid lakes which snow-slide shocks | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Hurl up in storms sublime; | 6 | ····˘/ |
| And sky above, unruflfed blue, | 7 | ······· |
| Chaste rills that alway ran | 6 | ···/˘· |
| From stainless source a course still true, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| What think ye of this man? | 6 | ······ |
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.