From the High Window of Your Room
From the high window of your room,Above the roofs, and streets, and cries,Lying awake and still, I watchThe wonder of the dawn arise.
Slow tips the world's deliberate rim,Descending to the baths of day:Up floats the pure, ethereal tideAnd floods the outworn dark away.
The city's sprawled, uneasy bulkIllumines slowly in my sight.The crowded roofs, the common walls,The grey streets, melt in mystic light.
It passes. Then, with longing soreFor that veiled light of paradise,I turn my face,--and find it inThe wonder of your waking eyes.
Words in this poem
- veiled a.
- Covered by, or as by, a veil; hidden.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
From the High Window of Your Room is in the public domain. This text is taken from New Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59897; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Charles G. D. Roberts, From the High Window of Your Room, in New Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59897, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/roberts-new-poems/from-the-high-window-of-your-room.html, id L11133.
Form and metre
From the High Window of Your Room is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 31% 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 -A-A room · criesA · watch · ariseA
- 2 -A-A rim · dayA · tide · awayA
- 3 -A-A bulk · sightA · walls · lightA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| From the high window of your room, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Above the roofs, and streets, and cries, | 8 | ········ |
| Lying awake and still, I watch | 8 | /˘˘/···· |
| The wonder of the dawn arise. | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Slow tips the world's deliberate rim, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Descending to the baths of day: | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| Up floats the pure, ethereal tide | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| And floods the outworn dark away. | 8 | ······˘/ |
| The city's sprawled, uneasy bulk | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| Illumines slowly in my sight. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The crowded roofs, the common walls, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The grey streets, melt in mystic light. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| It passes. Then, with longing sore | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| For that veiled light of paradise, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I turn my face,--and find it in | 8 | ········ |
| The wonder of your waking eyes. | 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.