Mid-Rapture
Thou lovely and beloved, thou my love;Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes,Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise,Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned aboveAll modulation of the deep-bowered dove,Is like a hand laid softly on the soul;Whose hand is like a sweet voice to controlThose worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:--
What word can answer to thy word,--what gazeTo thine, which now absorbs within its sphereMy worshipping face, till I am mirrored thereLight-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays?What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove,O lovely and beloved, O my love?
Words in this poem
- modulation n.
- The act of modulating, or the state of being modulated; as, the modulation of the voice. [L. modulatio: cf. F. modulation.]
- 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
Mid-Rapture 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, Mid-Rapture, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/mid-rapture.html, id L20946.
Form and metre
Mid-Rapture 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 ABBAACCA loveA · eyesB · sunriseB · aboveA · doveA · soulC · controlC · ofA
- 2 ABBACC gazeA · sphereB · thereB · raysA · proveC · loveC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thou lovely and beloved, thou my love; | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘··· |
| Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise, | 10 | /···/···/· |
| Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| All modulation of the deep-bowered dove, | 10 | ··˘/˘···/· |
| Is like a hand laid softly on the soul; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:-- | 10 | ··/····/˘· |
| What word can answer to thy word,--what gaze | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays? | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| O lovely and beloved, O my love? | 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.