When I Would Image
WHEN I would image her features,Comes up a shrouded head:I touch the outlines, shrinking;She seems of the wandering dead.
But when love asks for nothing,And lies on his bed of snow,The face slips under my eyelids,All in its living glow.
Like a dark cathedral city,Whose spires, and domes, and towersQuiver in violet lightnings,My soul basks on for hours.
About this text
When I Would Image is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems — Volume 1, Project Gutenberg ebook #1381; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George Meredith, When I Would Image, in Poems, Volume I (1851–1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1381, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/meredith-poems/when-i-would-image.html, id L13205.
Form and metre
When I Would Image is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% 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 features · headA · shrinking · deadA
- 2 -A-A nothing · snowA · eyelids · glowA
- 3 -A-A city · towersA · lightnings · hoursA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| WHEN I would image her features, | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| Comes up a shrouded head: | 6 | ···/˘· |
| I touch the outlines, shrinking; | 7 | ···/·/˘ |
| She seems of the wandering dead. | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| But when love asks for nothing, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And lies on his bed of snow, | 7 | ······· |
| The face slips under my eyelids, | 8 | ······/· |
| All in its living glow. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Like a dark cathedral city, | 8 | ···˘/˘/˘ |
| Whose spires, and domes, and towers | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Quiver in violet lightnings, | 8 | /˘·/˘˘/˘ |
| My soul basks on for hours. | 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.