Men, Women and Ghosts
"'... See small portions of the Eternal World that ever groweth':...So sang a Fairy, mocking, as he sat on a streak'd tulip,Thinking none saw him: when he ceas'd I started from the trees,And caught him in my hat, as boys knock down a butterfly."William Blake. "Europe. A Prophecy."
'Thou hast a lap full of seed,And this is a fine country.'William Blake.
Words in this poem
- tulip n.
- Any plant of the liliaceous genus Tulipa. Many varieties are cultivated for their beautiful, often variegated flowers. Tulip tree. [F. tulipe, OF. also tulipan, It. tulipano, tulipa, from Turk. tulbend, dulbend, literally, a turban, Per. dulband; -- so called from the resemblance of the form]
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Men, Women and Ghosts is in the public domain. This text is taken from Men, Women and Ghosts, Project Gutenberg ebook #841; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Amy Lowell, Men, Women and Ghosts, (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #841, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lowell-amy-men-women-ghosts/men-women-and-ghosts.html, id L26161.
Form and metre
Men, Women and Ghosts is 8 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is trochaic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 73%).
See other poems in trochaic heptameter.
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.
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 heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| "'... See small portions of the Eternal World that ever groweth':... | 14 | ··/˘··˘/˘··/·· |
| So sang a Fairy, mocking, as he sat on a streak'd tulip, | 15 | ···/˘/˘······/˘ |
| Thinking none saw him: when he ceas'd I started from the trees, | 14 | /˘·······/˘··· |
| And caught him in my hat, as boys knock down a butterfly." | 14 | ···········/˘· |
| William Blake. "Europe. A Prophecy." | 9 | /˘·/˘·/˘˘ |
| 'Thou hast a lap full of seed, | 7 | ······· |
| And this is a fine country.' | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| William Blake. | 3 | /˘· |
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.