The Court of Dreams
Rain from the mountains of Ki-ShoFled swiftly with a tearing breeze;The sun came radiant down the west,And greener blushed the valley trees.
I entered through the convent gate:The abbot bade me welcome there,And in the court of silent dreamsI lost the thread of worldly care.
That holy man and I were one,Beyond the bounds that words can trace:The very flowers were still as we.I heard the lark that hung in space,And Truth Eternal flashed on me.
Words in this poem
- bade
- A form of the pat tense of Bid.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Court of Dreams 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 Court of Dreams, in A Lute of Jade (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lute-of-jade/the-court-of-dreams.html, id L15566.
Form and metre
The Court of Dreams is 13 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 15% 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 sho · breezeA · west · treesA
- 2 -A-A gate · thereA · dreams · careA
- 3 -ABAB one · traceA · weB · spaceA · meB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Rain from the mountains of Ki-Sho | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Fled swiftly with a tearing breeze; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The sun came radiant down the west, | 9 | ···/˘˘··· |
| And greener blushed the valley trees. | 9 | ·/˘·˘·/˘· |
| I entered through the convent gate: | 9 | ·/˘˘··/˘· |
| The abbot bade me welcome there, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And in the court of silent dreams | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I lost the thread of worldly care. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| That holy man and I were one, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Beyond the bounds that words can trace: | 8 | ········ |
| The very flowers were still as we. | 9 | ·/˘/˘···· |
| I heard the lark that hung in space, | 8 | ········ |
| And Truth Eternal flashed on me. | 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.