Lady Louise
Sister, let the measure swellNot too loud; for you sing not wellIf you drown the faint boom of the bell;He is weary, so am I.
And ever the chevron overheadFlapped on the banner of the dead;(Was he asleep, or was he dead?)
About this text
Lady Louise is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #22650; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Morris, Lady Louise, in The Defence of Guenevere (1858), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22650, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/morris-defence-guenevere/lady-louise.html, id L07144.
Form and metre
Lady Louise is 7 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 AAA- swellA · wellA · bellA · i
- 2 AAA overheadA · deadA · deadA
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Sister, let the measure swell | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Not too loud; for you sing not well | 8 | ········ |
| If you drown the faint boom of the bell; | 9 | ········· |
| He is weary, so am I. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And ever the chevron overhead | 9 | ·/˘·/˘/˘/ |
| Flapped on the banner of the dead; | 9 | ·˘··/˘··· |
| (Was he asleep, or was he dead?) | 8 | ··˘/···· |
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.