Palestine
Old plant of Asia--Mutilated vineHolding earth's leaping sapIn every stem and shootThat lopped off, sprouts again--Why should you seek a plateau walled about,Whose garden is the world?
About this text
Palestine is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Ghetto, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #4332; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lola Ridge, Palestine, in The Ghetto, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4332, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/ridge-ghetto/palestine.html, id L20893.
Form and metre
Palestine is 7 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Old plant of Asia-- | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Mutilated vine | 5 | /˘·˘· |
| Holding earth's leaping sap | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| In every stem and shoot | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
| That lopped off, sprouts again-- | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Why should you seek a plateau walled about, | 10 | ·····˘/··· |
| Whose garden is the world? | 6 | ·/˘··· |
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.