He and I
Whence came his feet into my field, and why?How is it that he sees it all so drear?How do I see his seeing, and how hearThe name his bitter silence knows it by?This was the little fold of separate skyWhose pasturing clouds in the soul's atmosphereDrew living light from one continual year:How should he find it lifeless? He, or I?
Lo! this new Self now wanders round my field,With plaints for every flower, and for each treeA moan, the sighing wind's auxiliary:And o'er sweet waters of my life, that yieldUnto his lips no draught but tears unseal'd,Even in my place he weeps. Even I, not he.
Words in this poem
- drear n.
- Sadness; dismalness.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
He and I 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, He and I, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/he-and-i.html, id L21013.
Form and metre
He and I is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 ABBAABBA whyA · drearB · hearB · byA · skyA · atmosphereB · yearB · iA
- 2 AB-AAB fieldA · treeB · auxiliary · yieldA · unseal'dA · heB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Whence came his feet into my field, and why? | 10 | ·········· |
| How is it that he sees it all so drear? | 10 | ·········· |
| How do I see his seeing, and how hear | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The name his bitter silence knows it by? | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| This was the little fold of separate sky | 11 | ···/˘··/˘·· |
| Whose pasturing clouds in the soul's atmosphere | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Drew living light from one continual year: | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| How should he find it lifeless? He, or I? | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Lo! this new Self now wanders round my field, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| With plaints for every flower, and for each tree | 10 | ···/˘/···· |
| A moan, the sighing wind's auxiliary: | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| And o'er sweet waters of my life, that yield | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Unto his lips no draught but tears unseal'd, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Even in my place he weeps. Even I, not he. | 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.