A Superscription
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shellCast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between;Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seenWhich had Life's form and Love's, but by my spellIs now a shaken shadow intolerable,Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.
Mark me, how still I am! But should there dartOne moment through thy soul the soft surpriseOf that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apartThy visage to mine ambush at thy heartSleepless with cold commemorative eyes.
Words in this poem
- shalt
- 2d per. sing. of Shall.
- visage n.
- The face, countenance, or look of a person or an animal; -- chiefly applied to the human face. [F. visage, from L. visus a seeing, a look, fr. videre, visum, to see. See Vision.]
- sleepless a.
- Having no sleep; wakeful.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Superscription is in the public domain. This text is taken from The House of Life, Project Gutenberg ebook #3692; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, A Superscription, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/a-superscription.html, id L21012.
Form and metre
A Superscription is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
See 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 -AABBAAB been · farewellA · shellA · betweenB · seenB · spellA · intolerableA · screenB
- 2 ABBAAB dartA · surpriseB · sighsB · apartA · heartA · eyesB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; | 10 | ·········· |
| I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell; | 11 | ··/˘······/ |
| Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell | 10 | ·········· |
| Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen | 10 | ·········· |
| Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell | 10 | ·········· |
| Is now a shaken shadow intolerable, | 11 | ···/˘/·˘/˘˘ |
| Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart | 10 | ·········· |
| One moment through thy soul the soft surprise | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs, | 10 | ·········· |
| Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes. | 9 | /˘··˘/˘˘· |
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.