King Trisanku
Viswamitra the Magician,By his spells and incantations,Up to Indra's realms elysianRaised Trisanku, king of nations.
Indra and the gods offendedHurled him downward, and descendingIn the air he hung suspended,With these equal powers contending.
Thus by aspirations lifted,By misgivings downward driven,Human hearts are tossed and driftedMidway between earth and heaven.
Words in this poem
- elysian a.
- Pertaining, or the abode of the blessed after death; hence, yielding the highest pleasures; exceedingly delightful; beatific. [L. Elysius, fr. Elysium.]
- midway n.
- The middle of the way or distance; a middle way or course.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
King Trisanku 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, King Trisanku, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/king-trisanku.html, id L17790.
Form and metre
King Trisanku is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.3 syllables. 12 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 magicianA · incantationsB · elysianA · nationsB
- 2 ABAB offendedA · descendingB · suspendedA · contendingB
- 3 A-A- liftedA · driven · driftedA · heaven
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Viswamitra the Magician, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| By his spells and incantations, | 8 | ····˘//˘ |
| Up to Indra's realms elysian | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Raised Trisanku, king of nations. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Indra and the gods offended | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Hurled him downward, and descending | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| In the air he hung suspended, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| With these equal powers contending. | 9 | ··/˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Thus by aspirations lifted, | 8 | ···˘/˘/˘ |
| By misgivings downward driven, | 8 | ·˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| Human hearts are tossed and drifted | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Midway between earth and heaven. | 8 | /·····/˘ |
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.