Compensation
That nothing here may want its praise,Know, she who in her dress revealsA fine and modest taste, displaysMore loveliness than she conceals.
Words in this poem
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Compensation is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Angel in the House, Project Gutenberg ebook #4099; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Coventry Patmore, Compensation, in The Angel in the House (1854–1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4099, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/patmore-angel/compensation.html, id L12236.
Form and metre
Compensation is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables.
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 ABAB praiseA · revealsB · displaysA · concealsB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| That nothing here may want its praise, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Know, she who in her dress reveals | 8 | ······˘/ |
| A fine and modest taste, displays | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| More loveliness than she conceals. | 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.