A Character
As thro’ the hedge-row shade the violet steals,And the sweet air its modest leaf reveals;Her softer charms, but by their influence known,Surprise all hearts, and mould them to her own.
Words in this poem
- mould n.
- Crumbling, soft, friable earth; esp., earth containing the remains or constituents of organic matter, and suited to the growth of plants; soil. [OE. molde, AS. molde; akin to D. mul, G. mull, mulm, OHG. molt, molta, Icel. mold, Dan. muld, Sw. mull, Goth. mulda, and E. meal flour. See Meal, and cf. Mole a]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Character is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #13586; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Samuel Rogers, A Character, in Poems (1792–1834), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13586, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rogers-poems/a-character.html, id L09747.
Form and metre
A Character is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABB stealsA · revealsA · knownB · ownB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| As thro’ the hedge-row shade the violet steals, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And the sweet air its modest leaf reveals; | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Her softer charms, but by their influence known, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Surprise all hearts, and mould them to her own. | 10 | ˘/········ |
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.