A Mood
You are so light and gay,So slight, sweet maid—Your limbs like leaves in play,Or beams that grasses braid;O! Joys whose jewels prayMy breast to be inlaid.
Frail fairy of the streets;Strong, dainty lure;For all men’s eyes the sweetsWhose lack makes hearts so poor;While your heart loveless beats,Light, laughing, and impure.
O! Fragrant waft of flesh,Float through me so—My limbs are in your mesh,My blood forgets to flow;Ah! Lilied meadows fresh,It knows where it would go.
Words in this poem
- dainty n.
- Value; estimation; the gratification or pleasure taken in anything. [OE. deinie, dainte, deintie, deyntee, OF. deintié delicacy, orig., dignity, honor, fr. L. dignitas, fr. dignus worthy. See Deign, and cf. Dignity.]
- loveless a.
- Void of love; void of tenderness or kindness. Milton. Shelton.
- waft v. t.
- To give notice to by waving something; to wave the hand to; to beckon. [Prob. originally imp. & p. p. of wave, v. t. See Wave to waver.]
- mesh n.
- The opening or space inclosed by the threads of a net between knot and knot, or the threads inclosing such a space; network; a net. [AS. masc, max, m; akin to D. maas, masche, OHG. masca, Icel. möskvi; cf. Lith. mazgas a knot, megsti to weave nets, to knot.]
- lilied a.
- Covered with, or having many, lilies.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Mood is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Isaac Rosenberg, Project Gutenberg ebook #66889; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Isaac Rosenberg, A Mood, in Poems (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66889, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rosenberg-poems/a-mood.html, id L02527.
Form and metre
A Mood is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABAB. The metre is iambic trimeter, 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 5.7 syllables. 11% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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.
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 ABABAB gayA · maidB · playA · braidB · prayA · inlaidB
- 2 ABABAB streetsA · lureB · sweetsA · poorB · beatsA · impureB
- 3 ABABAB fleshA · soB · meshA · flowB · freshA · goB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| You are so light and gay, | 6 | ······ |
| So slight, sweet maid— | 4 | ···· |
| Your limbs like leaves in play, | 6 | ······ |
| Or beams that grasses braid; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| O! Joys whose jewels pray | 6 | ···/˘· |
| My breast to be inlaid. | 6 | ····/· |
| Frail fairy of the streets; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Strong, dainty lure; | 4 | ·/˘· |
| For all men’s eyes the sweets | 6 | ······ |
| Whose lack makes hearts so poor; | 6 | ······ |
| While your heart loveless beats, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Light, laughing, and impure. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| O! Fragrant waft of flesh, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Float through me so— | 4 | ···· |
| My limbs are in your mesh, | 6 | ······ |
| My blood forgets to flow; | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| Ah! Lilied meadows fresh, | 6 | ·/˘/·· |
| It knows where it would go. | 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.