The Poet's Thought
It came to him in rainbow dreams,Blent with the wisdom of the sages,Of spirit and of passion born;In words as lucent as the mornHe prisoned it, and now it gleamsA jewel shining through the ages.
Words in this poem
- blent p. p.
- Blinded. Also (Chaucer), 3d sing. pres. Blindeth.
- lucent a.
- Shining; bright; resplendent. [L. lucens, p. pr. of lucere to shine, fr. lux, lucis, light.]
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Poet's Thought 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, The Poet's Thought, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/the-poets-thought.html, id L29430.
Form and metre
The Poet's Thought is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABCCAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 ABCCAB dreamsA · sagesB · bornC · mornC · gleamsA · agesB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| It came to him in rainbow dreams, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Blent with the wisdom of the sages, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Of spirit and of passion born; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| In words as lucent as the morn | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| He prisoned it, and now it gleams | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| A jewel shining through the ages. | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
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.