At the Meeting of Seven Valleys
At the meeting of seven valleys in the west,I came upon a host of silent souls,Seated beside still waters on the grass.It was a place of memories and tears--Terrible tears. I rested in a wood,And there the bird that mourns for Itys sang--Itys that touched the tears of all the world.But climbing onward toward the purple peaks,I passed, on silent feet, white multitudes,Beyond the reach of peering memories,Lying asleep upon the scented banks,Their bodies burning with celestial fire.A mighty awe came on me at the thought--The strangeness of the beatific sleep,The vision of God, the mystic bread of rest.
Words in this poem
- strangeness n.
- The state or quality of being strange (in any sense of the adjective).
- beatific a.
- Having the power to impart or complete blissful enjoyment; blissful. [Cf. F. béatifique, L. beatificus. See Beatify.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
At the Meeting of Seven Valleys is in the public domain. This text is taken from The man with the hoe, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #67012; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Markham, At the Meeting of Seven Valleys, in The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #67012, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-man-with-hoe/at-the-meeting-of-seven-valleys.html, id L24804.
Form and metre
At the Meeting of Seven Valleys is 15 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See 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 A-------------A westA · souls · grass · tears · wood · sang · world · peaks · multitudes · memories · banks · fire · thought · sleep · restA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| At the meeting of seven valleys in the west, | 11 | ··/˘·//˘··· |
| I came upon a host of silent souls, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Seated beside still waters on the grass. | 10 | /˘˘/·/˘··· |
| It was a place of memories and tears-- | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| Terrible tears. I rested in a wood, | 10 | /˘˘··/˘··· |
| And there the bird that mourns for Itys sang-- | 10 | ·········· |
| Itys that touched the tears of all the world. | 10 | ·········· |
| But climbing onward toward the purple peaks, | 11 | ·/˘/˘···/˘· |
| I passed, on silent feet, white multitudes, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Beyond the reach of peering memories, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| Lying asleep upon the scented banks, | 10 | /˘˘/···/˘· |
| Their bodies burning with celestial fire. | 11 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘/˘ |
| A mighty awe came on me at the thought-- | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The strangeness of the beatific sleep, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| The vision of God, the mystic bread of rest. | 11 | ·/˘···/˘··· |
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.