Newborn Death II
And thou, O Life, the lady of all bliss,With whom, when our first heart beat full and fast,I wandered till the haunts of men were pass'd,And in fair places found all bowers amissTill only woods and waves might hear our kiss,While to the winds all thought of Death we cast:Ah, Life! and must I have from thee at lastNo smile to greet me and no babe but this?
Lo! Love, the child once ours; and Song, whose hairBlew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath;And Art, whose eyes were worlds by God found fair;These o'er the book of Nature mixed their breathWith neck-twined arms, as oft we watched them there:And did these die that thou mightst bear me Death?
Words in this poem
- babe n.
- An infant; a young child of either sex; a baby. [Cf. Ir. bab, baban, W. baban, maban.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Newborn Death II 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, Newborn Death II, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/newborn-death-ii.html, id L21015.
Form and metre
Newborn Death II is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 blissA · fastB · pass'dB · amissA · kissA · castB · lastB · thisA
- 2 A-ABAB hairA · wreath · fairA · breathB · thereA · deathB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And thou, O Life, the lady of all bliss, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| With whom, when our first heart beat full and fast, | 10 | ···/······ |
| I wandered till the haunts of men were pass'd, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And in fair places found all bowers amiss | 10 | ···/˘··/˘/ |
| Till only woods and waves might hear our kiss, | 10 | ·/˘·····/· |
| While to the winds all thought of Death we cast: | 10 | ·········· |
| Ah, Life! and must I have from thee at last | 10 | ·········· |
| No smile to greet me and no babe but this? | 10 | ·········· |
| Lo! Love, the child once ours; and Song, whose hair | 10 | ·····/···· |
| Blew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And Art, whose eyes were worlds by God found fair; | 10 | ·········· |
| These o'er the book of Nature mixed their breath | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| With neck-twined arms, as oft we watched them there: | 10 | ·········· |
| And did these die that thou mightst bear me Death? | 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.