Love's Baubles
I stood where Love in brimming armfuls boreSlight wanton flowers and foolish toys of fruit:And round him ladies thronged in warm pursuit,Fingered and lipped and proffered the strange store:And from one hand the petal and the coreSavoured of sleep; and cluster and curled shootSeemed from another hand like shame's salute,--Gifts that I felt my cheek was blushing for.
At last Love bade my Lady give the same:And as I looked, the dew was light thereon;And as I took them, at her touch they shoneWith inmost heaven-hue of the heart of flame.And then Love said: 'Lo! when the hand is hers,Follies of love are love's true ministers.'
Words in this poem
- brimming a.
- Full to the brim; overflowing.
- fingered a.
- Having fingers.
- bade
- A form of the pat tense of Bid.
- thereon adv.
- On that or this. [AS. . See There, and On.]
- inmost a.
- Deepest within; farthest from the surface or external part; innermost. [OE. innemest, AS. innemest, a double superlative form fr. inne within, fr. in in. The modern form is due to confusion with most. See In, and cf. Aftermost, Fore]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love's Baubles 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, Love's Baubles, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/love-s-baubles.html, id L20943.
Form and metre
Love's Baubles 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 boreA · fruitB · pursuitB · storeA · coreA · shootB · saluteB · forA
- 2 A--A-- sameA · thereon · shone · flameA · hers · ministers
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I stood where Love in brimming armfuls bore | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Slight wanton flowers and foolish toys of fruit: | 10 | ·/˘/·/˘··· |
| And round him ladies thronged in warm pursuit, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Fingered and lipped and proffered the strange store: | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| And from one hand the petal and the core | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Savoured of sleep; and cluster and curled shoot | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| Seemed from another hand like shame's salute,-- | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
| Gifts that I felt my cheek was blushing for. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| At last Love bade my Lady give the same: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And as I looked, the dew was light thereon; | 10 | ········˘/ |
| And as I took them, at her touch they shone | 10 | ·········· |
| With inmost heaven-hue of the heart of flame. | 10 | ·/˘/······ |
| And then Love said: 'Lo! when the hand is hers, | 10 | ·········· |
| Follies of love are love's true ministers.' | 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.