I Have Been Through the Gates
His heart, to me, was a place of palaces and pinnacles andshining towers;I saw it then as we see things in dreams,--I do not rememberhow long I slept;I remember the trees, and the high, white walls, and howthe sun was always on the towers;The walls are standing to-day, and the gates: I have beenthrough the gates, I have groped, I have creptBack, back. There is dust in the streets, and blood; theyare empty; darkness is over them;His heart is a place with the lights gone out, forsaken by greatwinds and the heavenly rain, unclean and unswept,Like the heart of the holy city, old, blind, beautiful Jerusalem,Over which Christ wept.
About this text
I Have Been Through the Gates is in the public domain. This text is taken from The farmer's bride, Project Gutenberg ebook #71305; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Charlotte Mew, I Have Been Through the Gates, in The Farmer's Bride (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #71305, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mew-farmers-bride/i-have-been-through-the-gates.html, id L02479.
Form and metre
I Have Been Through the Gates is 14 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.6 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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-B-A-B-C-BCB and · towersA · remember · sleptB · how · towersA · been · creptB · they · themC · great · unsweptB · jerusalemC · weptB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| His heart, to me, was a place of palaces and pinnacles and | 14 | ········/˘·/˘· |
| shining towers; | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| I saw it then as we see things in dreams,--I do not remember | 16 | ·············˘/˘ |
| how long I slept; | 4 | ···· |
| I remember the trees, and the high, white walls, and how | 13 | ·˘/˘········· |
| the sun was always on the towers; | 9 | ···/···/˘ |
| The walls are standing to-day, and the gates: I have been | 13 | ···/˘········ |
| through the gates, I have groped, I have crept | 9 | ········· |
| Back, back. There is dust in the streets, and blood; they | 11 | ··········· |
| are empty; darkness is over them; | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| His heart is a place with the lights gone out, forsaken by great | 15 | ··········˘/˘·· |
| winds and the heavenly rain, unclean and unswept, | 11 | ···/˘·˘/··· |
| Like the heart of the holy city, old, blind, beautiful Jerusalem, | 16 | ·····/˘/˘··/˘˘/˘ |
| Over which Christ wept. | 5 | ····· |
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.