The Impossibility
Lo, love’s obey’d by all. ’Tis rightThat all should know what they obey,Lest erring conscience damp delight,And folly laugh our joys away.Thou Primal Love, who grantest wingsAnd voices to the woodland birds,Grant me the power of saying thingsToo simple and too sweet for words!
Words in this poem
- conscience n.
- Knowledge of one's own thoughts or actions; consciousness. [F. conscience, fr. L. conscientia, fr. consciens, p.pr. of conscire to know, to be conscious; con- + scire to know. See Science.]
- primal a.
- First; primary; original; chief. [LL. primalis, fr. L. primus the first. See Prime, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Impossibility 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, The Impossibility, in The Angel in the House (1854–1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4099, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/patmore-angel/the-impossibility.html, id L12221.
Form and metre
The Impossibility is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCD. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABABCDCD rightA · obeyB · delightA · awayB · wingsC · birdsD · thingsC · wordsD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Lo, love’s obey’d by all. ’Tis right | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| That all should know what they obey, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Lest erring conscience damp delight, | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And folly laugh our joys away. | 8 | ·/˘·/·˘/ |
| Thou Primal Love, who grantest wings | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And voices to the woodland birds, | 8 | ·/˘··/·· |
| Grant me the power of saying things | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| Too simple and too sweet for words! | 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.