Venice
White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nestSo wonderfully built among the reedsOf the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds,As sayeth thy old historian and thy guest!White water-lily, cradled and caressedBy ocean streams, and from the silt and weedsLifting thy golden filaments and seeds,Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest!White phantom city, whose untrodden streetsAre rivers, and whose pavements are the shiftingShadows of palaces and strips of sky;I wait to see thee vanish like the fleetsSeen in mirage, or towers of cloud upliftingIn air their unsubstantial masonry.
Words in this poem
- lagoon n.
- A shallow sound, channel, pond, or lake, especially one into which the sea flows; as, the lagoons of Venice. [It. or Sp. laguna, L. lacuna ditch, pool, pond,lacus lake. See Lake, and cf. Lacuna.]
- silt n.
- Mud or fine earth deposited from running or standing water. [OE. silte gravel, fr. silen to drain, E. sile; probably of Scand. origin; cf. Sw. sila, prob. akin to AS. seón to filter, sigan to fall, sink, cause to sink, G.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Venice 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, Venice, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/venice.html, id L17757.
Form and metre
Venice is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 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. 57% 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- nestA · reedsB · feedsB · guestA · caressedA · weedsB · seedsB · crestA · streetsC · shiftingD · sky · fleetsC · upliftingD · masonry
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 |
|---|---|---|
| White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| So wonderfully built among the reeds | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Of the lagoon, that fences thee and feeds, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| As sayeth thy old historian and thy guest! | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| White water-lily, cradled and caressed | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| By ocean streams, and from the silt and weeds | 9 | ·/······· |
| Lifting thy golden filaments and seeds, | 9 | /˘·/˘/˘·· |
| Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and crest! | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| White phantom city, whose untrodden streets | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting | 11 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| Shadows of palaces and strips of sky; | 9 | /··/˘···· |
| I wait to see thee vanish like the fleets | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud uplifting | 11 | ··˘/·/··/·˘ |
| In air their unsubstantial masonry. | 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.