Flower-De-Luce
Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers,Or solitary mere,Or where the sluggish meadow-brook deliversIts waters to the weir!
Thou laughest at the mill, the whir and worryOf spindle and of loom,And the great wheel that toils amid the hurryAnd rushing of the flame.
Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance,Thou dost not toil nor spin,But makest glad and radiant with thy presenceThe meadow and the lin.
The wind blows, and uplifts thy drooping banner,And round thee throng and runThe rushes, the green yeomen of thy manor,The outlaws of the sun.
The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant,And tilts against the field,And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendentWith steel-blue mail and shield.
Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest,Who, armed with golden rodAnd winged with the celestial azure, bearestThe message of some God.
Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded citiesHauntest the sylvan streams,Playing on pipes of reed the artless dittiesThat come to us as dreams.
O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the riverLinger to kiss thy feet!O flower of song, bloom on, and make foreverThe world more fair and sweet.
Words in this poem
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- pleasance n.
- Pleasure; merriment; gayety; delight; kindness. [F. plaisance. See Please.]
- sunbeam n.
- A beam or ray of the sun. [AS. sunnebeam.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Flower-De-Luce is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Project Gutenberg ebook #1365; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Flower-De-Luce, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/flower-de-luce.html, id L17706.
Form and metre
Flower-De-Luce is 32 lines in 8 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 5 of its 8 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.5 syllables. 16 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABAB riversA · mereB · deliversA · weirB
- 2 A-A- worryA · loom · hurryA · flame
- 3 -A-A pleasance · spinA · presence · linA
- 4 ABAB bannerA · runB · manorA · sunB
- 5 ABAB attendantA · fieldB · resplendentA · shieldB
- 6 ABAB fairestA · rodB · bearestA · godB
- 7 ABAB citiesA · streamsB · dittiesA · dreamsB
- 8 -A-A river · feetA · forever · sweetA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers, | 11 | /˘˘/˘/˘··/˘ |
| Or solitary mere, | 6 | ·/˘·˘· |
| Or where the sluggish meadow-brook delivers | 11 | ···/˘/··˘/˘ |
| Its waters to the weir! | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Thou laughest at the mill, the whir and worry | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| Of spindle and of loom, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And the great wheel that toils amid the hurry | 11 | ······˘/·/˘ |
| And rushing of the flame. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Thou dost not toil nor spin, | 6 | ······ |
| But makest glad and radiant with thy presence | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| The meadow and the lin. | 6 | ·/···· |
| The wind blows, and uplifts thy drooping banner, | 11 | ····/˘·/˘/˘ |
| And round thee throng and run | 6 | ······ |
| The rushes, the green yeomen of thy manor, | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| The outlaws of the sun. | 6 | ·/···· |
| The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant, | 11 | ·/˘/˘···˘/˘ |
| And tilts against the field, | 6 | ······ |
| And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent | 11 | ···/˘/··˘/˘ |
| With steel-blue mail and shield. | 6 | ······ |
| Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Who, armed with golden rod | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And winged with the celestial azure, bearest | 11 | ····˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| The message of some God. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded cities | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| Hauntest the sylvan streams, | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Playing on pipes of reed the artless ditties | 11 | /˘·····/˘/˘ |
| That come to us as dreams. | 6 | ······ |
| O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river | 11 | ·/·······/˘ |
| Linger to kiss thy feet! | 6 | /˘···· |
| O flower of song, bloom on, and make forever | 11 | ·/······˘/˘ |
| The world more fair and sweet. | 6 | ······ |
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.