Glories
Roses from Paestan rosaries!More goodly red and white was she:Her red and white were harmonies,Not matched upon a Paestan tree.
Ivories blaunched in Alban air!She lies more purely blaunched than you:No Alban whiteness doth she wear,But death's perfection of that hue.
Nay! now the rivalry is done,Of red, and white, and whiter still:She hath a glory from that sun,Who falls not from Olympus hill.
Words in this poem
- goodly a.
- Pleasant; agreeable; desirable. [OE. godlich, AS. g. See Good, and Like.]
- alban n.
- A white crystalline resinous substance extracted from gutta- percha by the action of alcohol or ether. [L. albus white.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Glories is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #66520; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lionel Johnson, Glories, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66520, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-lionel-poems/glories.html, id L12489.
Form and metre
Glories is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 -A-A rosaries · sheA · harmonies · treeA
- 2 ABAB airA · youB · wearA · hueB
- 3 ABAB doneA · stillB · sunA · hillB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Roses from Paestan rosaries! | 8 | /˘···/˘˘ |
| More goodly red and white was she: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Her red and white were harmonies, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Not matched upon a Paestan tree. | 8 | ········ |
| Ivories blaunched in Alban air! | 8 | /˘˘··/˘· |
| She lies more purely blaunched than you: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| No Alban whiteness doth she wear, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| But death's perfection of that hue. | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Nay! now the rivalry is done, | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| Of red, and white, and whiter still: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| She hath a glory from that sun, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Who falls not from Olympus hill. | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
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.