To Vernon Lee
On Bellosguardo, when the year was young,We wandered, seeking for the daffodilAnd dark anemone, whose purples fillThe peasant’s plot, between the corn-shoots sprung.
Over the grey, low wall the olive flungHer deeper greyness; far off, hill on hillSloped to the sky, which, pearly-pale and still,Above the large and luminous landscape hung.
A snowy blackthorn flowered beyond my reach;You broke a branch and gave it to me there;I found for you a scarlet blossom rare.
Thereby ran on of Art and Life our speech;And of the gifts the gods had given to each--Hope unto you, and unto me Despair.
Words in this poem
- snowy a.
- White like snow.
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Vernon Lee 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 Vernon Lee, 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-vernon-lee.html, id L21559.
Form and metre
To Vernon Lee is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 ABBA youngA · daffodilB · fillB · sprungA
- 2 ABBA flungA · hillB · stillB · hungA
- 3 -AA reach · thereA · rareA
- 4 AA- speechA · eachA · despair
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 |
|---|---|---|
| On Bellosguardo, when the year was young, | 10 | ·········· |
| We wandered, seeking for the daffodil | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| And dark anemone, whose purples fill | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| The peasant’s plot, between the corn-shoots sprung. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Over the grey, low wall the olive flung | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Her deeper greyness; far off, hill on hill | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Sloped to the sky, which, pearly-pale and still, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Above the large and luminous landscape hung. | 10 | ·····/˘/·· |
| A snowy blackthorn flowered beyond my reach; | 10 | ·/˘/˘/···· |
| You broke a branch and gave it to me there; | 10 | ·········· |
| I found for you a scarlet blossom rare. | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Thereby ran on of Art and Life our speech; | 10 | ········/· |
| And of the gifts the gods had given to each-- | 10 | ·······/·· |
| Hope unto you, and unto me Despair. | 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.