Covering Wings
Love! Love! Your tenderness,Your beautiful, watchful waysGrasp me, fold me, cover me;I lie in a kind of daze,Neither asleep nor yet awake,Neither a bud nor flower.Brings to-morrowJoy or sorrow,The black or the golden hour?
Love! Love! You pity me so!Chide me, scold me—cry,“Submit—submit! You must not fight!”What may I do, then? Die?But, oh, my horror of quiet beds!How can I longer stay!“One to be ready,Two to be steady,Three to be off and away!”
Darling heart—your gravity!Your sorrowful, mournful gaze—“Two bleached roads lie under the moon,At the parting of the ways.”But the tiny, tree-thatched, narrow lane,Isn’t it yours and mine?The blue-bells ringHey, ding-a-ding, ding!And buds are thick on the vine.
Love! Love! grief of my heart!As a tree droops over a streamYou hush me, lull me, darken me,The shadow hiding the gleam.Your drooping and tragical boughs of graceAre heavy as though with rain.Run! Run!Into the sun!Let us be children again.
Words in this poem
- daze v. t.
- To stupefy with excess of light; with a blow, with cold, or with fear; to confuse; to benumb. [OE. dasen, prob. from Icel. dasask to become weary, a reflexive verb; cf. Sw. dasa to lie idle, and OD. daesen to be foolish, insane, daes, dwaes, D. dwaas, foo]
- bleached a.
- Whitened; make white.
- ding v. t.
- To dash; to throw violently. [OE. dingen, dengen; akin to AS. dencgan to knock, Icel. dengja to beat, hammer, Sw. dänga, G. dengeln.]
- lull v. t.
- To cause to rest by soothing influences; to compose; to calm; to soothe; to quiet. [Akin to OD. lullen to sing to sleep, G. lullen, Dan. lulle, Sw. lulla; all of imitative origin. Cf. Loll, Lollard.]
- tragical a.
- Of or pertaining to tragedy; of the nature or character of tragedy; as, a tragic poem; a tragic play or representation. [L. tragicus, Gr.tragique.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Covering Wings is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59276; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Katherine Mansfield, Covering Wings, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59276, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mansfield-poems/covering-wings.html, id L27610.
Form and metre
Covering Wings is 36 lines in 4 stanzas of 9 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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-BCCB tenderness · waysA · me · dazeA · awake · flowerB · morrowC · sorrowC · hourB
- 2 -A-A-BCCB so · cryA · fight · dieA · beds · stayB · readyC · steadyC · awayB
- 3 -A-A-BCCB gravity · gazeA · moon · waysA · lane · mineB · ringC · dingC · vineB
- 4 -A-A-BCCB heart · streamA · me · gleamA · grace · rainB · runC · sunC · againB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Love! Love! Your tenderness, | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
| Your beautiful, watchful ways | 7 | ·/˘˘/˘· |
| Grasp me, fold me, cover me; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| I lie in a kind of daze, | 7 | ······· |
| Neither asleep nor yet awake, | 8 | /˘˘/··˘/ |
| Neither a bud nor flower. | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| Brings to-morrow | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Joy or sorrow, | 4 | ··/˘ |
| The black or the golden hour? | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Love! Love! You pity me so! | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Chide me, scold me—cry, | 5 | ····· |
| “Submit—submit! You must not fight!” | 8 | ˘/˘/···· |
| What may I do, then? Die? | 6 | ······ |
| But, oh, my horror of quiet beds! | 8 | ···/˘·/· |
| How can I longer stay! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| “One to be ready, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Two to be steady, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Three to be off and away!” | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Darling heart—your gravity! | 7 | /˘··/˘˘ |
| Your sorrowful, mournful gaze— | 7 | ·/˘˘/˘· |
| “Two bleached roads lie under the moon, | 8 | ········ |
| At the parting of the ways.” | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| But the tiny, tree-thatched, narrow lane, | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| Isn’t it yours and mine? | 6 | /˘···· |
| The blue-bells ring | 4 | ···· |
| Hey, ding-a-ding, ding! | 5 | ····· |
| And buds are thick on the vine. | 7 | ······· |
| Love! Love! grief of my heart! | 6 | ······ |
| As a tree droops over a stream | 8 | ········ |
| You hush me, lull me, darken me, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The shadow hiding the gleam. | 7 | ·/·/˘·· |
| Your drooping and tragical boughs of grace | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Are heavy as though with rain. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Run! Run! | 2 | ·· |
| Into the sun! | 4 | ···· |
| Let us be children again. | 7 | ···/˘˘/ |
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.