Rhymes
If perhaps these rhymes of mine should sound not well in strangers' ears,They have only to bethink them that it happens so with theirs;For so long as words, like mortals, call a fatherland their own,They will be most highly valued where they are best and longest known.
Words in this poem
- fatherland n.
- One's native land; the native land of one's fathers or ancestors. [Imitated fr. D. vaderland. See Father, and Land.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Rhymes 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, Rhymes, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/rhymes.html, id L18063.
Form and metre
Rhymes is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The lines average 15.2 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 --AA ears · theirs · ownA · knownA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| If perhaps these rhymes of mine should sound not well in strangers' ears, | 15 | ·˘/·········/˘· |
| They have only to bethink them that it happens so with theirs; | 15 | ··/˘·˘/···/˘··· |
| For so long as words, like mortals, call a fatherland their own, | 15 | ······/˘··/˘··· |
| They will be most highly valued where they are best and longest known. | 16 | ····/˘/˘·····/˘· |
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.