Love and Law
True Love is founded in rocks of RemembranceIn stones of Forbearance and mortar of Pain.The workman lays wearily granite on granite,And bleeds for his castle 'mid sunshine and rain.
Love is not velvet, not all of it velvet,Not all of it banners, not gold-leaf alone.'Tis stern as the ages and old as Religion.With Patience its watchword, and Law for its throne.
Words in this poem
- wearily adv.
- In a weary manner.
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love and Law is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Congo, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #1021; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Vachel Lindsay, Love and Law, in The Congo and Other Poems (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1021, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lindsay-congo/love-and-law.html, id L00956.
Form and metre
Love and Law is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 75%). 80% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.1 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic 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 -A-A remembrance · painA · granite · rainA
- 2 -AAA velvet · aloneA · religionA · throneA
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| True Love is founded in rocks of Remembrance | 11 | ···/˘···˘/˘ |
| In stones of Forbearance and mortar of Pain. | 11 | ···˘/˘·/˘·· |
| The workman lays wearily granite on granite, | 12 | ·/˘·/˘˘/˘·/˘ |
| And bleeds for his castle 'mid sunshine and rain. | 11 | ····/˘·/··· |
| Love is not velvet, not all of it velvet, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Not all of it banners, not gold-leaf alone. | 11 | ····/˘···˘/ |
| 'Tis stern as the ages and old as Religion. | 12 | ····/˘···˘/˘ |
| With Patience its watchword, and Law for its throne. | 11 | ·/˘·/······ |
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.