Giotto's Tower
How many lives, made beautiful and sweetBy self-devotion and by self-restraint,Whose pleasure is to run without complaintOn unknown errands of the Paraclete,Wanting the reverence of unshodden feet,Fail of the nimbus which the artists paintAround the shining forehead of the saint,And are in their completeness incomplete!In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's tower,The lily of Florence blossoming in stone,--A vision, a delight, and a desire,--The builder's perfect and centennial flower,That in the night of ages bloomed alone,But wanting still the glory of the spire.
Words in this poem
- paraclete n.
- An advocate; one called to aid or support; hence, the Consoler, Comforter, or Intercessor; -- a term applied to the Holy Spirit.
- nimbus n.
- A circle, or disk, or any indication of radiant light around the heads of divinities, saints, and sovereigns, upon medals, pictures, etc.; a halo. See Aureola, and Glory, n., 5. [L., a rain storm, a rain cloud, the cloudshaped which enveloped the gods when they appeared on earth.]
- centennial a.
- Relating to, or associated with, the commemoration of an event that happened a hundred years before; as, a centennial ode. [L. centum a hundred + annus year.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Giotto's Tower 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, Giotto's Tower, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/giotto-s-tower.html, id L17714.
Form and metre
Giotto's Tower is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABBAABBACD-CD- sweetA · restraintB · complaintB · paracleteA · feetA · paintB · saintB · incompleteA · towerC · stoneD · desire · flowerC · aloneD · spire
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 |
|---|---|---|
| How many lives, made beautiful and sweet | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘·· |
| By self-devotion and by self-restraint, | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
| Whose pleasure is to run without complaint | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| On unknown errands of the Paraclete, | 10 | ·˘//˘··/˘˘ |
| Wanting the reverence of unshodden feet, | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Fail of the nimbus which the artists paint | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Around the shining forehead of the saint, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And are in their completeness incomplete! | 10 | ····˘/˘˘˘/ |
| In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's tower, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| The lily of Florence blossoming in stone,-- | 10 | ·/˘·/˘/˘·· |
| A vision, a delight, and a desire,-- | 11 | ·/˘·˘/··˘/˘ |
| The builder's perfect and centennial flower, | 10 | ·/˘/··˘/˘/ |
| That in the night of ages bloomed alone, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| But wanting still the glory of the spire. | 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.