Come, Rest Awhile
Come, rest awhile, and let us idly strayIn glimmering valleys, cool and far away.
Come from the greedy mart, the troubled street,And listen to the music, faint and sweet,
That echoes ever to a listening ear,Unheard by those who will not pause to hear—
The wayward chimes of memory's pensive bells,Wind-blown o'er misty hills and curtained dells.
One step aside and dewy buds uncloseThe sweetness of the violet and the rose;
Song and romance still linger in the green,Emblossomed ways by you so seldom seen,
And near at hand, would you but see them, lieAll lovely things beloved in days gone by.
You have forgotten what it is to smileIn your too busy life—come, rest awhile.
Words in this poem
- awhile adv.
- For a while; for some time; for a short time. [Adj. a + while time, interval.]
- mart v. t.
- To buy or sell in, or as in, a mart.
- unheard a.
- Not heard; not perceived by the ear; as, words unheard by those present.
- wayward a.
- Taking one's own way; disobedient; froward; perverse; willful. [OE. weiward, for aweiward, i. e., turned away. See Away, and -ward.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Come, Rest Awhile is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Watchman and Other Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917; Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1916), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: L. M. Montgomery, Come, Rest Awhile, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/come-rest-awhile.html, id L29380.
Form and metre
Come, Rest Awhile is 16 lines in 8 stanzas of 2 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AA strayA · awayA
- 2 AA streetA · sweetA
- 3 AA earA · hearA
- 4 AA bellsA · dellsA
- 5 AA uncloseA · roseA
- 6 AA greenA · seenA
- 7 AA lieA · byA
- 8 AA smileA · awhileA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Come, rest awhile, and let us idly stray | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| In glimmering valleys, cool and far away. | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| Come from the greedy mart, the troubled street, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And listen to the music, faint and sweet, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| That echoes ever to a listening ear, | 10 | ·/˘/··/˘˘· |
| Unheard by those who will not pause to hear— | 10 | ˘/········ |
| The wayward chimes of memory's pensive bells, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Wind-blown o'er misty hills and curtained dells. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| One step aside and dewy buds unclose | 10 | ··˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| The sweetness of the violet and the rose; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Song and romance still linger in the green, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| Emblossomed ways by you so seldom seen, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And near at hand, would you but see them, lie | 10 | ·········· |
| All lovely things beloved in days gone by. | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| You have forgotten what it is to smile | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| In your too busy life—come, rest awhile. | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
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.