Art, the Herald I

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) · 1913

iambic pentameter · AABCCB · 6 lines · from Collected Poems, Volume One

Beyond; beyond; and yet again beyond!What went ye out to seek, oh foolish-fond?Is not the heart of all things here and now?Is not the circle infinite, and the centreEverywhere, if ye would but hear and enter?Come; the porch bends and the great pillars bow.

Words in this poem

went n.
Course; way; path; journey; direction.
centre v. i.
To be placed in a center; to be central.

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

Art, the Herald I 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, Art, the Herald I, in Collected Poems, Volume One (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #30501, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/noyes-collected/art-the-herald-i.html, id L21424.

Form and metre

Art, the Herald I is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes AABCCB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).

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. 1 AABCCB beyondA · fondA · nowB · centreC · enterC · bowB
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.

LineSyl.Stress
Beyond; beyond; and yet again beyond!10······˘/··
What went ye out to seek, oh foolish-fond?10·······/˘·
Is not the heart of all things here and now?10··········
Is not the circle infinite, and the centre11···/˘/˘··/˘
Everywhere, if ye would but hear and enter?11/˘·······/˘
Come; the porch bends and the great pillars bow.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.

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