Apes and Ivory
Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong,Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song,Masts of gold and sails of satin, shimmering out of the East,O, Love has little need of you now to make his heart a feast.
Or is it an elephant, white as milk and bearing a severed headThat tatters his broad soft wrinkled flank in tawdry patches of red,With a negro giant to walk beside and a temple dome above,Where ruby and emerald shatter the sun,--is it these that shouldplease my love?
Or is it a palace of pomegranates, where ivory-limbed young slavesLure a luxury out of the noon in the swooning fountain's waves;Or couch like cats and sun themselves on the warm white marble brink?O, Love has little to ask of these, this day in May, I think.
Is it Lebanon cedars or purple fruits of the honeyed southron air,Spikenard, saffron, roses of Sharon, cinnamon, calamus, myrrh,A bed of spices, a fountain of waters, or the wild white wings ofa dove,Now, when the winter is over and gone, is it these that shouldplease my love?
The leaves outburst on the hazel-bough and the hawthorn's heapedwi' flower,And God has bidden the crisp clouds build my love a lordlier tower,Taller than Lebanon, whiter than snow, in the fresh blue skies above;And the wild rose wakes in the winding lanes of the radiant landI love.
Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong,Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song,Masts of gold and sails of satin, shimmering out of the East,O, Love has little need of you now to make his heart a feast.
Words in this poem
- haunted a.
- Inhabited by, or subject to the visits of, apparitions; frequented by a ghost.
- shimmering n.
- A gleam or glimmering.
- tawdry a.
- Bought at the festival of St. Audrey. [Said to be corrupted from Saint Audrey, or Auldrey, meaning Saint Ethelreda, implying therefore, originally, bought at the fair of St. Audrey, where laces and g]
- brink n.
- The edge, margin, or border of a steep place, as of a precipice; a bank or edge, as of a river or pit; a verge; a border; as, the brink of a chasm. Also Fig. [Dan. brink edge, verge; akin to Sw. brink declivity, hill, Icel. brekka; cf. LG. brink a grassy hill, W. bryn hill, bryncyn hillock.]
- honeyed a.
- Covered with honey.
- southron n.
- An inhabitant of the more southern part of a country; formerly, a name given in Scotland to any Englishman.
- calamus n.
- The indian cane, a plant of the Palm family. It furnishes the common rattan. See Rattan, and Dragon's blood. [L., a reed. See Halm.]
- outburst n.
- A bursting forth.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Apes and Ivory is in the public domain. This text is taken from Collected Poems: Volume One, Project Gutenberg ebook #30501; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alfred Noyes, Apes and Ivory, in Collected Poems, Volume One (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #30501, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/noyes-collected/apes-and-ivory.html, id L21411.
Form and metre
Apes and Ivory is 29 lines in 6 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 3 of its 6 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic trimeter.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 AABB kongA · songA · eastB · feastB
- 2 AAB-B headA · redA · aboveB · should · loveB
- 3 AABB slavesA · wavesA · brinkB · thinkB
- 4 --AA-A air · myrrh · ofA · doveA · should · loveA
- 5 -AAB-B heaped · flowerA · towerA · aboveB · land · loveB
- 6 AABB kongA · songA · eastB · feastB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong, | 15 | ··/˘˘··/˘······ |
| Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song, | 15 | /˘········/˘··· |
| Masts of gold and sails of satin, shimmering out of the East, | 15 | ······/˘/˘˘···· |
| O, Love has little need of you now to make his heart a feast. | 15 | ···/˘·········· |
| Or is it an elephant, white as milk and bearing a severed head | 16 | ····/˘····/˘·/˘· |
| That tatters his broad soft wrinkled flank in tawdry patches of red, | 16 | ·/˘···/˘··/˘/˘·· |
| With a negro giant to walk beside and a temple dome above, | 17 | ··/˘/˘···/··/˘··· |
| Where ruby and emerald shatter the sun,--is it these that should | 15 | ·/˘·/˘/˘······· |
| please my love? | 3 | ··· |
| Or is it a palace of pomegranates, where ivory-limbed young slaves | 17 | ····/˘······/˘··· |
| Lure a luxury out of the noon in the swooning fountain's waves; | 15 | ··/˘······/˘/˘· |
| Or couch like cats and sun themselves on the warm white marble brink? | 15 | ······˘/····/˘· |
| O, Love has little to ask of these, this day in May, I think. | 15 | ···/˘·········· |
| Is it Lebanon cedars or purple fruits of the honeyed southron air, | 17 | ··/˘/˘·/˘···/˘/˘· |
| Spikenard, saffron, roses of Sharon, cinnamon, calamus, myrrh, | 15 | /˘/˘/˘·˘//˘/˘˘· |
| A bed of spices, a fountain of waters, or the wild white wings of | 17 | ···/˘·/˘·/˘······ |
| a dove, | 2 | ·· |
| Now, when the winter is over and gone, is it these that should | 15 | ···/˘·········· |
| please my love? | 3 | ··· |
| The leaves outburst on the hazel-bough and the hawthorn's heaped | 15 | ··/···/˘···/··˘ |
| wi' flower, | 3 | ·/˘ |
| And God has bidden the crisp clouds build my love a lordlier tower, | 16 | ···/˘·········/˘ |
| Taller than Lebanon, whiter than snow, in the fresh blue skies above; | 15 | /˘·/˘/········· |
| And the wild rose wakes in the winding lanes of the radiant land | 15 | ·······/˘···/˘· |
| I love. | 2 | ·· |
| Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong, | 15 | ··/˘˘··/˘······ |
| Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song, | 15 | /˘········/˘··· |
| Masts of gold and sails of satin, shimmering out of the East, | 15 | ······/˘/˘˘···· |
| O, Love has little need of you now to make his heart a feast. | 15 | ···/˘·········· |
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.