The Four Lakes of Madison
Four limpid lakes,--four NaiadesOr sylvan deities are these,In flowing robes of azure dressed;Four lovely handmaids, that upholdTheir shining mirrors, rimmed with gold,To the fair city in the West.
By day the coursers of the sunDrink of these waters as they runTheir swift diurnal round on high;By night the constellations glowFar down the hollow deeps below,And glimmer in another sky.
Fair lakes, serene and full of light,Fair town, arrayed in robes of white,How visionary ye appear!All like a floating landscape seemsIn cloud-land or the land of dreams,Bathed in a golden atmosphere!
About this text
The Four Lakes of Madison 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, The Four Lakes of Madison, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/the-four-lakes-of-madison.html, id L17828.
Form and metre
The Four Lakes of Madison is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABCCB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% 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 --ABBA naiades · these · dressedA · upholdB · goldB · westA
- 2 AABCCB sunA · runA · highB · glowC · belowC · skyB
- 3 AABCCB lightA · whiteA · appearB · seemsC · dreamsC · atmosphereB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Four limpid lakes,--four Naiades | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Or sylvan deities are these, | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘·· |
| In flowing robes of azure dressed; | 9 | ·/˘··/˘·˘ |
| Four lovely handmaids, that uphold | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Their shining mirrors, rimmed with gold, | 9 | ·/˘/˘·˘·· |
| To the fair city in the West. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| By day the coursers of the sun | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Drink of these waters as they run | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Their swift diurnal round on high; | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| By night the constellations glow | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Far down the hollow deeps below, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And glimmer in another sky. | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| Fair lakes, serene and full of light, | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Fair town, arrayed in robes of white, | 9 | ··˘/˘···· |
| How visionary ye appear! | 8 | ·/˘·˘·˘/ |
| All like a floating landscape seems | 8 | ···/˘/·· |
| In cloud-land or the land of dreams, | 8 | ········ |
| Bathed in a golden atmosphere! | 9 | ·˘··/˘/˘· |
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.