The Island of Pines
Across the willow-lake a temple shines,Pale, through the lotus-girdled isle of pines,And twilight listens to the drip of oars --The coming of dark boats with scented storesOf orange seed; the mist leans from the hill,While palm leaves sway 'twixt wind and water chill,And waves of smoke like phantoms rise and fadeInto a trembling tangle of green jade.I dream strange dreams within my tower room,Dreams from the glimmering realms of even gloom;Until each princely guest doth, landing, raiseHis eyes, upon the full-orbed moon to gaze --The old moon-palace that in ocean standsMid clouds of thistle-down and jewelled strands.
Words in this poem
- isle v. t.
- To cause to become an island, or like an island; to surround or encompass; to island.
- drip v. i.
- To fall in drops; as, water drips from the eaves. [Akin to LG. drippen, Dan. dryppe, from a noun. See Drop.]
- tangle v. t.
- To unite or knit together confusedly; to interweave or interlock, as threads, so as to make it difficult to unravel the knot; to entangle; to ravel. [A frequentative fr. tang seaweed; hence, to twist like seaweed. See Tang seaweed, and cf. Tangle, n.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Island of Pines 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 Island of Pines, in A Lute of Jade (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lute-of-jade/the-island-of-pines.html, id L15608.
Form and metre
The Island of Pines is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCCDDEEFFGG shinesA · pinesA · oarsB · storesB · hillC · chillC · fadeD · jadeD · roomE · gloomE · raiseF · gazeF · standsG · strandsG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Across the willow-lake a temple shines, | 10 | ˘/·/···/˘· |
| Pale, through the lotus-girdled isle of pines, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And twilight listens to the drip of oars -- | 10 | ·/·/˘····· |
| The coming of dark boats with scented stores | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Of orange seed; the mist leans from the hill, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| While palm leaves sway 'twixt wind and water chill, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And waves of smoke like phantoms rise and fade | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Into a trembling tangle of green jade. | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| I dream strange dreams within my tower room, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Dreams from the glimmering realms of even gloom; | 10 | ···/˘˘··/· |
| Until each princely guest doth, landing, raise | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| His eyes, upon the full-orbed moon to gaze -- | 10 | ·········· |
| The old moon-palace that in ocean stands | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Mid clouds of thistle-down and jewelled strands. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
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.