The Last Revel
From silver lamps a thin blue smoke is streaming,And golden vases 'mid the feast are gleaming;Now sound the lutes in unison,Within the gates our lives are one.We'll think not of the parting waysAs long as dawn delays.
When in tall trees the dying moonbeams quiver:When floods of fire efface the Silver River,Then comes the hour when I must seekLo-Yang beyond the furthest peak.But the warm twilight round us twainWill never rise again.
Words in this poem
- streaming a.
- Sending forth streams.
- yang n.
- The cry of the wild goose; a honk. [Of imitative origin.]
- twain a.
- Two;- nearly obsolete in common discourse, but used in poetry and burlesque. [OE. twein, tweien, tweyne, AS. twegen, masc. See Two.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Last Revel 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 Last Revel, in A Lute of Jade (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lute-of-jade/the-last-revel.html, id L15565.
Form and metre
The Last Revel is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABBCC. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.8 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% 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 AABBCC streamingA · gleamingA · unisonB · oneB · waysC · delaysC
- 2 AABBCC quiverA · riverA · seekB · peakB · twainC · againC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| From silver lamps a thin blue smoke is streaming, | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| And golden vases 'mid the feast are gleaming; | 11 | ·/˘/˘····/˘ |
| Now sound the lutes in unison, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Within the gates our lives are one. | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| We'll think not of the parting ways | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| As long as dawn delays. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| When in tall trees the dying moonbeams quiver: | 11 | ·····/˘/·/˘ |
| When floods of fire efface the Silver River, | 11 | ···/˘/·/˘/˘ |
| Then comes the hour when I must seek | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Lo-Yang beyond the furthest peak. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| But the warm twilight round us twain | 8 | ···/···· |
| Will never rise again. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
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.