The Flower
I am the man who found a flower,A blossom blown upon the wind,More radiant than the sunrise rose,More sweet than lotus-airs of Ind.
I clutched the flower, and on my heartI crushed its petals, red and burning.O ecstasy of life new-born!O youth returned, the unreturning!
I am the man who dared the GodsAnd under their thunderbolts lay blest,Because I found the flower, and wore itOne wild hour upon my breast.
About this text
The Flower 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, The Flower, in New Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59897, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/roberts-new-poems/the-flower.html, id L11135.
Form and metre
The Flower is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 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 -A-A flower · windA · rose · indA
- 2 -A-A heart · burningA · born · unreturningA
- 3 -A-A gods · blestA · it · breastA
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 am the man who found a flower, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| A blossom blown upon the wind, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| More radiant than the sunrise rose, | 9 | ·/˘˘··/·· |
| More sweet than lotus-airs of Ind. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I clutched the flower, and on my heart | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| I crushed its petals, red and burning. | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| O ecstasy of life new-born! | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| O youth returned, the unreturning! | 9 | ··˘/····· |
| I am the man who dared the Gods | 9 | ······˘·· |
| And under their thunderbolts lay blest, | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Because I found the flower, and wore it | 9 | ·····/··· |
| One wild hour upon my breast. | 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.