Herself
To be a sweetness more desired than Spring;A bodily beauty more acceptableThan the wild rose-tree's arch that crowns the fell;To be an essence more environingThan wine's drained juice; a music ravishingMore than the passionate pulse of Philomel;--To be all this 'neath one soft bosom's swellThat is the flower of life:--how strange a thing!
How strange a thing to be what Man can knowBut as a sacred secret! Heaven's own screenHides her soul's purest depth and loveliest glow;Closely withheld, as all things most unseen,--The wave-bowered pearl, the heart-shaped seal of greenThat flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow.
Words in this poem
- ravishing a.
- Rapturous; transporting.
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Herself 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, Herself, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/herself.html, id L20973.
Form and metre
Herself is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
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 ABBAA-BA springA · acceptableB · fellB · environingA · ravishingA · philomel · swellB · thingA
- 2 ABABBA knowA · screenB · glowA · unseenB · greenB · snowA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| To be a sweetness more desired than Spring; | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| A bodily beauty more acceptable | 11 | ·/˘˘/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| Than the wild rose-tree's arch that crowns the fell; | 10 | ·········· |
| To be an essence more environing | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Than wine's drained juice; a music ravishing | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| More than the passionate pulse of Philomel;-- | 11 | ···/˘˘··/˘˘ |
| To be all this 'neath one soft bosom's swell | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| That is the flower of life:--how strange a thing! | 10 | ···/······ |
| How strange a thing to be what Man can know | 10 | ·········· |
| But as a sacred secret! Heaven's own screen | 11 | ···/˘/˘/˘·· |
| Hides her soul's purest depth and loveliest glow; | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| Closely withheld, as all things most unseen,-- | 10 | /˘˘/····˘/ |
| The wave-bowered pearl, the heart-shaped seal of green | 10 | ··/······· |
| That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow. | 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.