A Tulip Garden
Guarded within the old red wall's embrace,Marshalled like soldiers in gay company,The tulips stand arrayed. Here infantryWheels out into the sunlight. What bold graceSets off their tunics, white with crimson lace!Here are platoons of gold-frocked cavalry,With scarlet sabres tossing in the eyeOf purple batteries, every gun in place.Forward they come, with flaunting colours spread,With torches burning, stepping out in timeTo some quick, unheard march. Our ears are dead,We cannot catch the tune. In pantomimeParades that army. With our utmost powersWe hear the wind stream through a bed of flowers.
Words in this poem
- infantry n.
- A body of children. B. Jonson. [F. infanterie, It. infanteria, fr. infante infant, child, boy servant, foot soldier, fr. L. infans, -antis, child; foot soldiers being formerly the servants and]
- unheard a.
- Not heard; not perceived by the ear; as, words unheard by those present.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Tulip Garden is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, Project Gutenberg ebook #1020; 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, A Tulip Garden, in Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1020, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lowell-amy-sword-blades/a-tulip-garden.html, id L08247.
Form and metre
A Tulip Garden is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 43% 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 A--AA--ABCBCDD embraceA · company · infantry · graceA · laceA · cavalry · eye · placeA · spreadB · timeC · deadB · pantomimeC · powersD · flowersD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Guarded within the old red wall's embrace, | 10 | /˘······˘/ |
| Marshalled like soldiers in gay company, | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘˘ |
| The tulips stand arrayed. Here infantry | 10 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘˘ |
| Wheels out into the sunlight. What bold grace | 10 | ·····/···· |
| Sets off their tunics, white with crimson lace! | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Here are platoons of gold-frocked cavalry, | 10 | ··˘/···/˘˘ |
| With scarlet sabres tossing in the eye | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Of purple batteries, every gun in place. | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Forward they come, with flaunting colours spread, | 10 | /˘···/˘/˘· |
| With torches burning, stepping out in time | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| To some quick, unheard march. Our ears are dead, | 10 | ···˘/·/··· |
| We cannot catch the tune. In pantomime | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Parades that army. With our utmost powers | 11 | ˘/·/˘·//·/˘ |
| We hear the wind stream through a bed of flowers. | 11 | ·········/˘ |
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.