Heart's Compass
Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,But as the meaning of all things that are;A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afarSome heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon;Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone;Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar,Being of its furthest fires oracular;--The evident heart of all life sown and mown.
Even such Love is; and is not thy name Love?Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apartAll gathering clouds of Night's ambiguous art;Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above;And simply, as some gage of flower or glove,Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.
Words in this poem
- breathless a.
- Spent with labor or violent action; out of breath.
- shadowing n.
- Shade, or gradation of light and color; shading. Feltham.
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- solstice n.
- A stopping or standing still of the sun. Sir T. Browne. [L. solstitium; sol the sun + sistere to cause to stand, akin to stare to stand: cf. F. solstice. See Solar, a., Stand, v. i.]
- unbar v. t.
- To remove a bar or bars from; to unbolt; to open; as, to unbar a gate. Heber. [1st pref. un- + bar.]
- oracular a.
- Of or pertaining to an oracle; uttering oracles; forecasting the future; as, an oracular tongue. [L. oracularius. See Oracle.]
- mown p. p.
- Cut down by mowing, as grass; deprived of grass by mowing; as, a mown field.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Heart's Compass 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, Heart's Compass, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/heart-s-compass.html, id L20947.
Form and metre
Heart's Compass is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%).
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 ABBAACC- aloneA · areB · afarB · halcyonA · toneA · unbarC · oracularC · mown
- 2 ABBAAB loveA · apartB · artB · aboveA · gloveA · heartB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone, | 10 | ˘/····˘/˘/ |
| But as the meaning of all things that are; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon; | 11 | ·/˘˘/˘··/˘˘ |
| Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone; | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Being of its furthest fires oracular;-- | 11 | /··/˘/˘˘/˘˘ |
| The evident heart of all life sown and mown. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Even such Love is; and is not thy name Love? | 10 | /········· |
| Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apart | 10 | ········˘/ |
| All gathering clouds of Night's ambiguous art; | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above; | 10 | ·········· |
| And simply, as some gage of flower or glove, | 10 | ·/˘····/·· |
| Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart. | 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.