Echoes
Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope,The freshness of the elder lays, the mightOf manly, modern passion shall alightUpon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope(Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope)With the world's strong-armed warriors and reciteThe dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight;Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope.But if thou ever in some lake-floored caveO'erbrowed by hard rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard,Answering at once from heaven and earth and wave,Lending elf-music to thy harshest word,Misprize thou not these echoes that belongTo one in love with solitude and song.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- veiled a.
- Covered by, or as by, a veil; hidden.
- misprize v. t.
- To slight or undervalue. [OF. mesprisier to deprise, F. mépriser; pref. amiss, wrong (L. minus less + LL. pretium price. See price, Prize, v.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Echoes is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Volume 1, Project Gutenberg ebook #3295; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emma Lazarus, Echoes, in Poems, Volume I (1867–1887), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3295, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lazarus-poems/echoes.html, id L01916.
Form and metre
Echoes is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDCDEE. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 43% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ABBAABBACDCDEE hopeA · mightB · alightB · copeA · gropeA · reciteB · fightB · scopeA · caveC · heardD · waveC · wordD · belongE · songE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The freshness of the elder lays, the might | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Of manly, modern passion shall alight | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Upon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| (Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope) | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| With the world's strong-armed warriors and recite | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| The dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope. | 10 | /˘········ |
| But if thou ever in some lake-floored cave | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| O'erbrowed by hard rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard, | 11 | ··········· |
| Answering at once from heaven and earth and wave, | 10 | /˘···/···· |
| Lending elf-music to thy harshest word, | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| Misprize thou not these echoes that belong | 10 | ˘/···/˘·˘/ |
| To one in love with solitude and song. | 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.