To E
The mountains in fantastic linesSweep, blue-white, to the sky, which shinesBlue as blue gems; athwart the pinesThe lake gleams blue.
We three were here, three years gone by;Our Poet, with fine-frenzied eye,You, steeped in learned lore, and I,A poet too.
Our Poet brought us books and flowers,He read us Faust; he talked for hoursPhilosophy (sad Schopenhauer’s),Beneath the trees:
And do you mind that sunny day,When he, as on the sward he lay,Told of Lassalle who bore awayThe false Louise?
Thrice-favoured bard! to him aloneThat green and snug retreat was shown,Where to the vulgar herd unknown,Our pens we plied.
(For, in those distant days, it seems,We cherished sundry idle dreams,And with our flowing foolscap reamsThe Fates defied.)
And after, when the day was gone,And the hushed, silver night came on,He showed us where the glow-worm shone;--We stooped to see.
There, too, by yonder moon we sworePlatonic friendship o’er and o’er;No folk, we deemed, had been beforeSo wise and free.
And do I sigh or smile to-day?Dead love or dead ambition, say,Which mourn we most? Not much we weighPlatonic friends.
On you the sun is shining free;Our Poet sleeps in Italy,Beneath an alien sod; on meThe cloud descends.
Words in this poem
- sunny a.
- Of or pertaining to the sun; proceeding from, or resembling the sun; hence, shining; bright; brilliant; radiant.
- sundry a.
- Several; divers; more than one or two; various. [OE. sundry, sondry, AS. syndrig, fr. sundor asunder. See Sunder, v. t.]
- foolscap n.
- A writing paper made in sheets, ordinarily 16 x 13 inches, and folded so as to make a page 13 x 8 inches. See Paper. [So called from the watermark of a fool's cap and bells used by old paper makers. See Fool's cap, under Fool.]
- yonder adv.
- At a distance, but within view. [OE. yonder, ýonder; cf. OD. ginder, Goth. jaindr there. Yond, adv.]
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To E 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, To E, in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/to-e.html, id L21569.
Form and metre
To E is 40 lines in 10 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 AAAB linesA · shinesA · pinesA · blueB
- 2 CCCB byC · eyeC · iC · tooB
- 3 DDDE flowersD · hoursD · schopenhauer'sD · treesE
- 4 FFFE dayF · layF · awayF · louiseE
- 5 GGGH aloneG · shownG · unknownG · pliedH
- 6 IIIH seemsI · dreamsI · reamsI · defiedH
- 7 ---J gone · on · shone · seeJ
- 8 K-KJ sworeK · o'er · beforeK · freeJ
- 9 LLLM dayL · sayL · weighL · friendsM
- 10 N-NM freeN · italy · meN · descendsM
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The mountains in fantastic lines | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| Sweep, blue-white, to the sky, which shines | 8 | ········ |
| Blue as blue gems; athwart the pines | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| The lake gleams blue. | 4 | ···· |
| We three were here, three years gone by; | 8 | ········ |
| Our Poet, with fine-frenzied eye, | 8 | //˘··/˘· |
| You, steeped in learned lore, and I, | 8 | ··˘····· |
| A poet too. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Our Poet brought us books and flowers, | 9 | //˘····/˘ |
| He read us Faust; he talked for hours | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Philosophy (sad Schopenhauer’s), | 8 | ˘/˘˘···· |
| Beneath the trees: | 4 | ···· |
| And do you mind that sunny day, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| When he, as on the sward he lay, | 8 | ········ |
| Told of Lassalle who bore away | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| The false Louise? | 4 | ··˘/ |
| Thrice-favoured bard! to him alone | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| That green and snug retreat was shown, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| Where to the vulgar herd unknown, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Our pens we plied. | 5 | /˘··· |
| (For, in those distant days, it seems, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| We cherished sundry idle dreams, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| And with our flowing foolscap reams | 8 | ··//˘/˘· |
| The Fates defied.) | 4 | ··˘/ |
| And after, when the day was gone, | 8 | ········ |
| And the hushed, silver night came on, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| He showed us where the glow-worm shone;-- | 8 | ········ |
| We stooped to see. | 4 | ···· |
| There, too, by yonder moon we swore | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Platonic friendship o’er and o’er; | 8 | ˘/˘/˘··· |
| No folk, we deemed, had been before | 8 | ········ |
| So wise and free. | 4 | ···· |
| And do I sigh or smile to-day? | 8 | ········ |
| Dead love or dead ambition, say, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Which mourn we most? Not much we weigh | 8 | ········ |
| Platonic friends. | 4 | ˘/˘· |
| On you the sun is shining free; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Our Poet sleeps in Italy, | 9 | /˘/˘··/˘˘ |
| Beneath an alien sod; on me | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The cloud descends. | 4 | ··˘/ |
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.