On Reading the Poems of Warton. Age Fourteen
Oh, Warton! to thy soothing shell,Stretch'd remote in hermit cell,Where the brook runs babbling by,For ever I could listening lie;And catching all the muses' fire,Hold converse with the tuneful quire.
What pleasing themes thy page adorn,The ruddy streaks of cheerful morn,The pastoral pipe, the ode sublime,And Melancholy's mournful chime!Each with unwonted graces shinesIn thy ever lovely lines.
Thy muse deserves the lasting meed;Attuning sweet the Dorian reed,Now the lovelorn swain complains,And sings his sorrows to the plains;Now the sylvan scenes appearThrough all the changes of the year;
Or the elegiac strainSoftly sings of mental pain,And mournful diapasons sailOn the faintly dying gale.But, ah! the soothing scene is o'er,On middle flight we cease to soar,For now the muse assumes a bolder sweep,Strikes on the lyric string her sorrows deep,In strains unheard before.Now, now the rising fire thrills high,Now, now to heaven's high realms we fly,And every throne explore:The soul entranced, on mighty wings,With all the poet's heat upsprings,And loses earthly woes;Till all alarm'd at the giddy height,The Muse descends on gentler flight,And lulls the wearied soul to soft repose.
Words in this poem
- tuneful a.
- Harmonious; melodious; musical; as, tuneful notes.
- quire v. i.
- To sing in concert.
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
- chime n.
- The harmonious sound of bells, or of musical instruments. [OE. chimbe, prop., cymbal, OF. cymbe, cymble, in a dialectic form, chymble, F. cymbale, L. cymbalum, fr. Gr. Cymbal.]
- unwonted a.
- Not wonted; unaccustomed; unused; not made familiar by practice; as, a child unwonted to strangers.
- meed v. t.
- To reward; to repay. Waytt.
- dorian a.
- Of or pertaining to the ancient Greeks of Doris; Doric; as, a Dorian fashion.
- lovelorn a.
- Forsaken by one's love.
- unheard a.
- Not heard; not perceived by the ear; as, words unheard by those present.
- explore v. t.
- To seek for or after; to strive to attain by search; to look wisely and carefully for. [L. explorare to explore; ex out+plorare to cry out aloud,prob. orig., to cause to flow; perh. akin to E. flow: cf. F. explorer.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On Reading the Poems of Warton. Age Fourteen is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Henry Kirk White : With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas, Project Gutenberg ebook #7149; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Kirke White, On Reading the Poems of Warton. Age Fourteen, in The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White (1803–1806), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7149, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kirke-white-poems/on-reading-the-poems-of-warton-age-fourteen.html, id L10073.
Form and metre
On Reading the Poems of Warton. Age Fourteen is 36 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is AABBCC, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 11% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AABBCC shellA · cellA · byB · lieB · fireC · quireC
- 2 AABBCC adornA · mornA · sublimeB · chimeB · shinesC · linesC
- 3 AABBCC meedA · reedA · complainsB · plainsB · appearC · yearC
- 4 AABB-CDDCEECFFGHHG strainA · painA · sailB · galeB · o'er · soarC · sweepD · deepD · beforeC · highE · flyE · exploreC · wingsF · upspringsF · woesG · heightH · flightH · reposeG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oh, Warton! to thy soothing shell, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Stretch'd remote in hermit cell, | 7 | ·˘/·/˘· |
| Where the brook runs babbling by, | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| For ever I could listening lie; | 9 | ·/˘··/˘˘· |
| And catching all the muses' fire, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Hold converse with the tuneful quire. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| What pleasing themes thy page adorn, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| The ruddy streaks of cheerful morn, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The pastoral pipe, the ode sublime, | 9 | ·/˘˘···˘/ |
| And Melancholy's mournful chime! | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| Each with unwonted graces shines | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| In thy ever lovely lines. | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Thy muse deserves the lasting meed; | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Attuning sweet the Dorian reed, | 9 | ˘/˘··/˘˘· |
| Now the lovelorn swain complains, | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| And sings his sorrows to the plains; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Now the sylvan scenes appear | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Through all the changes of the year; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Or the elegiac strain | 7 | ··˘/˘˘· |
| Softly sings of mental pain, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| And mournful diapasons sail | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| On the faintly dying gale. | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| But, ah! the soothing scene is o'er, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| On middle flight we cease to soar, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| For now the muse assumes a bolder sweep, | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| Strikes on the lyric string her sorrows deep, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| In strains unheard before. | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| Now, now the rising fire thrills high, | 9 | ···/˘/˘·· |
| Now, now to heaven's high realms we fly, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| And every throne explore: | 7 | ·/˘˘·˘/ |
| The soul entranced, on mighty wings, | 9 | ··˘/˘·/˘· |
| With all the poet's heat upsprings, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And loses earthly woes; | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Till all alarm'd at the giddy height, | 9 | ··˘/··/˘· |
| The Muse descends on gentler flight, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| And lulls the wearied soul to soft repose. | 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.