Vision
Homer, they tell us, was blind and could not see the beautiful facesLooking up into his own and reflecting the joy of his dream,Yet did he seemGifted with eyes that could follow the gods to their holiest places.
I have no vision of gods, not of Eros with love-arrows laden,Jupiter thundering death or of Juno his white-breasted queen,Yet have I seenAll of the joy of the world in the innocent heart of a maiden.
Words in this poem
- eros n.
- Love; the god of love; -- by earlier writers represented as one of the first and creative gods, by later writers as the son of Aphrodite, equivalent to the Latin god Cupid.
- thundering a.
- Emitting thunder.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Vision is in the public domain. This text is taken from Trees, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #263; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Joyce Kilmer, Vision, in Trees and Other Poems (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #263, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kilmer-trees/vision.html, id L12902.
Form and metre
Vision is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is dactylic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 82% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.9 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in dactylic hexameter.
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 ABBA facesA · dreamB · seemB · placesA
- 2 ABBA ladenA · queenB · seenB · maidenA
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 dactylic hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Homer, they tell us, was blind and could not see the beautiful faces | 16 | /˘··········/˘/˘ |
| Looking up into his own and reflecting the joy of his dream, | 16 | /˘······˘/˘····· |
| Yet did he seem | 4 | ···· |
| Gifted with eyes that could follow the gods to their holiest places. | 16 | /˘····/˘····/˘/˘ |
| I have no vision of gods, not of Eros with love-arrows laden, | 17 | ···/˘····/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Jupiter thundering death or of Juno his white-breasted queen, | 14 | /˘/˘···/˘··/˘· |
| Yet have I seen | 4 | ···· |
| All of the joy of the world in the innocent heart of a maiden. | 16 | ·········/˘···/˘ |
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.