Poem XV
In other worlds I loved you, long ago:Love that hath no beginning hath no end:Low to her heart he breathed it, sweet and low;In other worlds I loved you, long ago;This is a word that all the sea-waves knowAnd whisper as through the shoreless West they wend,In other worlds I loved you, long ago:Love that hath no beginning hath no end.
Words in this poem
- shoreless a.
- Having no shore or coast; of indefinite or unlimited extent; as, a shoreless ocean. Young.
- wend n.
- A large extent of ground; a perambulation; a circuit.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poem XV 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, Poem XV, in Collected Poems, Volume One (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #30501, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/noyes-collected/poem-xv.html, id L21447.
Form and metre
Poem XV is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAAABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 ABAAABAB agoA · endB · lowA · agoA · knowA · wendB · agoA · endB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In other worlds I loved you, long ago: | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Love that hath no beginning hath no end: | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Low to her heart he breathed it, sweet and low; | 10 | ·········· |
| In other worlds I loved you, long ago; | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| This is a word that all the sea-waves know | 10 | ·········· |
| And whisper as through the shoreless West they wend, | 11 | ·/˘···/˘··· |
| In other worlds I loved you, long ago: | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Love that hath no beginning hath no end. | 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.