The Pool and the Soul
As in some stagnant pool by forest-side,In human souls two things are oft descried;The sky,--which tints the surface of the poolWith all its rays, and all its shadows cool;The basin next,--where gloomy, dark and deep,Through slime and mud black reptiles vaguely creep.
About this text
The Pool and the Soul 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, The Pool and the Soul, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/the-pool-and-the-soul.html, id L26780.
Form and metre
The Pool and the Soul is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCC sideA · descriedA · poolB · coolB · deepC · creepC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| As in some stagnant pool by forest-side, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| In human souls two things are oft descried; | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| The sky,--which tints the surface of the pool | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| With all its rays, and all its shadows cool; | 10 | ·······/·· |
| The basin next,--where gloomy, dark and deep, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Through slime and mud black reptiles vaguely creep. | 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.