Memorial Thresholds
What place so strange,--though unrevealed snowWith unimaginable fires ariseAt the earth's end,--what passion of surpriseLike frost-bound fire-girt scenes of long ago?Lo! this is none but I this hour; and lo!This is the very place which to mine eyesThose mortal hours in vain immortalize,'Mid hurrying crowds, with what alone I know.
City, of thine a single simple door,By some new Power reduplicate, must beEven yet my life-porch in eternity,Even with one presence filled, as once of yoreOr mocking winds whirl round a chaff-strown floorThee and thy years and these my words and me.
Words in this poem
- girt v. t.
- To gird; to encircle; to invest by means of a girdle; to measure the girth of; as, to girt a tree. [From Girt, n., cf. Girth, v.]
- immortalize v. t.
- To render immortal; to cause to live or exist forever. S. Clarke. [Cf. F. immortaliser.]
- reduplicate a.
- Double; doubled; reduplicative; repeated. [Pref. re- + duplicate: cf. L. reduplicatus. Cf. Redouble.]
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Memorial Thresholds 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, Memorial Thresholds, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/memorial-thresholds.html, id L20997.
Form and metre
Memorial Thresholds 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 ABBAABBA snowA · ariseB · surpriseB · agoA · loA · eyesB · immortalizeB · knowA
- 2 AB-AAB doorA · beB · eternity · yoreA · floorA · meB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| What place so strange,--though unrevealed snow | 10 | ········˘· |
| With unimaginable fires arise | 10 | ··˘/˘˘˘/˘/ |
| At the earth's end,--what passion of surprise | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Like frost-bound fire-girt scenes of long ago? | 10 | ···/····˘/ |
| Lo! this is none but I this hour; and lo! | 10 | ·······/·· |
| This is the very place which to mine eyes | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Those mortal hours in vain immortalize, | 11 | ·/˘/˘··˘/˘˘ |
| 'Mid hurrying crowds, with what alone I know. | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| City, of thine a single simple door, | 10 | /˘···/˘/˘· |
| By some new Power reduplicate, must be | 10 | ···/˘/˘˘·· |
| Even yet my life-porch in eternity, | 11 | /˘·····˘/˘˘ |
| Even with one presence filled, as once of yore | 10 | /··/˘····· |
| Or mocking winds whirl round a chaff-strown floor | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Thee and thy years and these my words and me. | 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.