The Colour of Life
Would that we might for ever stayThe rainbow glories of the world,The blue of the unfathomed sea,The rare azalea late unfurled,The parrot of a greener spring,The willows and the terrace line,The stranger from the night-steeped hills,The roselit brimming cup of wine.Oh for a life that stretched afar,Where no dead dust of books were rife,Where spring sang clear from star to star;Alas! what hope for such a life?
Words in this poem
- azalea n.
- A genus of showy flowering shrubs, mostly natives of China or of North America; false honeysuckle. The genus is scarcely distinct from Rhododendron.
- brimming a.
- Full to the brim; overflowing.
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- rife a.
- Prevailing; prevalent; abounding. [AS. rif abundant, or Icel. rifr munificent; akin to OD. riff, rijve, abundant.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Colour of Life is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Lute of Jade, Project Gutenberg ebook #390, the L. Cranmer-Byng translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, The Colour of Life, in A Lute of Jade (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lute-of-jade/the-colour-of-life.html, id L15613.
Form and metre
The Colour of Life is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% 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 -A-A-B-BCDCD stay · worldA · sea · unfurledA · spring · lineB · hills · wineB · afarC · rifeD · starC · lifeD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Would that we might for ever stay | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The rainbow glories of the world, | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| The blue of the unfathomed sea, | 8 | ········ |
| The rare azalea late unfurled, | 8 | ··˘/˘·˘/ |
| The parrot of a greener spring, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The willows and the terrace line, | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| The stranger from the night-steeped hills, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The roselit brimming cup of wine. | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Oh for a life that stretched afar, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Where no dead dust of books were rife, | 8 | ········ |
| Where spring sang clear from star to star; | 8 | ········ |
| Alas! what hope for such a life? | 8 | ˘/······ |
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.