London Poets (In Memoriam.)
They trod the streets and squares where now I tread,With weary hearts, a little while ago;When, thin and grey, the melancholy snowClung to the leafless branches overhead;Or when the smoke-veiled sky grew stormy-redIn autumn; with a re-arisen woeWrestled, what time the passionate spring winds blow;And paced scorched stones in summer:--they are dead.
The sorrow of their souls to them did seemAs real as mine to me, as permanent.To-day, it is the shadow of a dream,The half-forgotten breath of breezes spent.So shall another soothe his woe supreme--“No more he comes, who this way came and went.”
Words in this poem
- clung a.
- Wasted away; shrunken. [Prop. p. p. fr. OE. clingen to wither. See Cling, v. i.]
- veiled a.
- Covered by, or as by, a veil; hidden.
- 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,]
- soothe v. t.
- To assent to as true. Testament of Love. [Originally, to assent to as true; OE. so to verify, AS. ges to prove the truth of, to bear witness. See Sooth, a.]
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
London Poets (In Memoriam.) is in the public domain. This text is taken from A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #56974; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Amy Levy, London Poets (In Memoriam.), in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/london-poets-in-memoriam.html, id L21530.
Form and metre
London Poets (In Memoriam.) is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 ABBAABBA treadA · agoB · snowB · overheadA · redA · woeB · blowB · deadA
- 2 ABABAB seemA · permanentB · dreamA · spentB · supremeA · wentB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| They trod the streets and squares where now I tread, | 10 | ·········· |
| With weary hearts, a little while ago; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| When, thin and grey, the melancholy snow | 10 | ·····/˘·˘· |
| Clung to the leafless branches overhead; | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘/ |
| Or when the smoke-veiled sky grew stormy-red | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| In autumn; with a re-arisen woe | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| Wrestled, what time the passionate spring winds blow; | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| And paced scorched stones in summer:--they are dead. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The sorrow of their souls to them did seem | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| As real as mine to me, as permanent. | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| To-day, it is the shadow of a dream, | 10 | ·····/···· |
| The half-forgotten breath of breezes spent. | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| So shall another soothe his woe supreme-- | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
| “No more he comes, who this way came and went.” | 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.