Cloud and Wind
Love, should I fear death most for you or me?Yet if you die, can I not follow you,Forcing the straits of change? Alas! but whoShall wrest a bond from night's inveteracy,Ere yet my hazardous soul put forth, to beHer warrant against all her haste might rue?--Ah! in your eyes so reached what dumb adieu,What unsunned gyres of waste eternity?
And if I die the first, shall death be thenA lampless watchtower whence I see you weep?--Or (woe is me!) a bed wherein my sleepNe'er notes (as death's dear cup at last you drain),The hour when you too learn that all is vainAnd that Hope sows what Love shall never reap?
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- lampless a.
- Being without a lamp, or without light; hence, being without appreciation; dull.
- watchtower n.
- A tower in which a sentinel is placed to watch for enemies, the approach of danger, or the like.
- reap n.
- A bundle of grain; a handful of grain laid down by the reaper as it is cut. Wright. [Cf. AS. rip harvest. See Reap, v.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cloud and Wind 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, Cloud and Wind, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/cloud-and-wind.html, id L20964.
Form and metre
Cloud and Wind is 14 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 ABB-ABB- meA · youB · whoB · inveteracy · beA · rueB · adieuB · eternity
- 2 -AABBA then · weepA · sleepA · drainB · vainB · reapA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Love, should I fear death most for you or me? | 10 | ·········· |
| Yet if you die, can I not follow you, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Forcing the straits of change? Alas! but who | 10 | /˘····˘/·· |
| Shall wrest a bond from night's inveteracy, | 11 | ······˘/˘˘˘ |
| Ere yet my hazardous soul put forth, to be | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Her warrant against all her haste might rue?-- | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Ah! in your eyes so reached what dumb adieu, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| What unsunned gyres of waste eternity? | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
| And if I die the first, shall death be then | 10 | ·········· |
| A lampless watchtower whence I see you weep?-- | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Or (woe is me!) a bed wherein my sleep | 10 | ·········· |
| Ne'er notes (as death's dear cup at last you drain), | 10 | ·········· |
| The hour when you too learn that all is vain | 10 | ·/········ |
| And that Hope sows what Love shall never reap? | 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.