Constancy Rewarded
I vow’d unvarying faith, and she,To whom in full I pay that vow,Rewards me with varietyWhich men who change can never know.
About this text
Constancy Rewarded 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, Constancy Rewarded, in The Angel in the House (1854–1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4099, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/patmore-angel/constancy-rewarded.html, id L12316.
Form and metre
Constancy Rewarded is 4 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I vow’d unvarying faith, and she, | 8 | ········ |
| To whom in full I pay that vow, | 8 | ········ |
| Rewards me with variety | 8 | ˘/··˘/˘˘ |
| Which men who change can never know. | 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.