The Prototype
Lo, there, whence love, life, light are pour’d,Veil’d with impenetrable rays,Amidst the presence of the LordCo-equal Wisdom laughs and plays.Female and male God made the man;His image is the whole, not half;And in our love we dimly scanThe love which is between Himself.
Words in this poem
- amidst prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- dimly adv.
- In a dim or obscure manner; not brightly or clearly; with imperfect sight.
- scan v. t.
- To mount by steps; to go through with step by step. [L. scandere, scansum, to climb, to scan, akin to Skr. skand to spring, leap: cf. F. scander. Cf. Ascend, Descend, Scale a ladder.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Prototype 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 Prototype, in The Angel in the House (1854–1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4099, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/patmore-angel/the-prototype.html, id L12254.
Form and metre
The Prototype is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 25% 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 ABABC-C- pour'dA · raysB · lordA · playsB · manC · half · scanC · himself
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, there, whence love, life, light are pour’d, | 8 | ········ |
| Veil’d with impenetrable rays, | 8 | ··˘/˘˘˘· |
| Amidst the presence of the Lord | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| Co-equal Wisdom laughs and plays. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Female and male God made the man; | 8 | /······· |
| His image is the whole, not half; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And in our love we dimly scan | 8 | ··/··/˘· |
| The love which is between Himself. | 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.