On the Threshold
O God, my dream! I dreamed that you were dead;Your mother hung above the couch and weptWhereon you lay all white, and garlandedWith blooms of waxen whiteness. I had creptUp to your chamber-door, which stood ajar,And in the doorway watched you from afar,Nor dared advance to kiss your lips and brow.I had no part nor lot in you, as now;Death had not broken between us the old bar;Nor torn from out my heart the old, cold senseOf your misprision and my impotence.
Words in this poem
- whereon adv.
- On which; -- used relatively; as, the earth whereon we live.
- ajar adv.
- Slightly turned or opened; as, the door was standing ajar. [OE. on char ajar, on the turn; AS. cerr, cyrr, turn, akin to G. kehren to turn, and to D. akerre. See Char.]
- doorway n.
- The passage of a door; entrance way into a house or a room.
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- misprision n.
- The act of misprising; misapprehension; misconception; mistake. [LL. misprisio, or OF. mesprison, prop., a mistaking, but confused with OF. mespris contempt, F. mépris. See 2d Misprise, Misprize, Prison.]
- impotence n.
- The quality or condition of being impotent; want of strength or power, animal, intellectual, or moral; weakness; feebleness; inability; imbecility. [L. impotenia inability, poverty, want of moderation. See Impotent.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On the Threshold 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, On the Threshold, in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/on-the-threshold.html, id L21537.
Form and metre
On the Threshold is 11 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCCDDCEE. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 ABABCCDDCEE deadA · weptB · garlandedA · creptB · ajarC · afarC · browD · nowD · barC · senseE · impotenceE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O God, my dream! I dreamed that you were dead; | 10 | ·········· |
| Your mother hung above the couch and wept | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Whereon you lay all white, and garlanded | 10 | ˘/·····/˘˘ |
| With blooms of waxen whiteness. I had crept | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Up to your chamber-door, which stood ajar, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And in the doorway watched you from afar, | 10 | ···/····˘/ |
| Nor dared advance to kiss your lips and brow. | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| I had no part nor lot in you, as now; | 10 | ·········· |
| Death had not broken between us the old bar; | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| Nor torn from out my heart the old, cold sense | 10 | ·········· |
| Of your misprision and my impotence. | 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.