Passion and Worship
One flame-winged brought a white-winged harp-playerEven where my lady and I lay all alone;Saying: 'Behold, this minstrel is unknown;Bid him depart, for I am minstrel here:Only my strains are to Love's dear ones, dear.'Then said I: 'Through thine hautboy's rapturous toneUnto my lady still this harp makes moan,And still she deems the cadence deep and clear.'
Then said my lady: 'Thou art Passion of Love,And this Love's Worship: both he plights to me.Thy mastering music walks the sunlit sea:But where wan water trembles in the groveAnd the wan moon is all the light thereof,This harp still makes my name its voluntary.'
Words in this poem
- depart v. i.
- To part; to divide; to separate. [OE. departen to divide, part, depart, F. départir to divide, distribute, se départir to separate one's self, depart; pref. dé- (L. de) + partir to part, depart,]
- sunlit a.
- Lighted by the sun.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Passion and Worship 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, Passion and Worship, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/passion-and-worship.html, id L20929.
Form and metre
Passion and Worship is 14 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 -AABBAAB player · aloneA · unknownA · hereB · dearB · toneA · moanA · clearB
- 2 ABB-A- loveA · meB · seaB · grove · thereofA · voluntary
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 |
|---|---|---|
| One flame-winged brought a white-winged harp-player | 10 | ········/˘ |
| Even where my lady and I lay all alone; | 11 | /··/˘····˘/ |
| Saying: 'Behold, this minstrel is unknown; | 10 | /˘˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| Bid him depart, for I am minstrel here: | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Only my strains are to Love's dear ones, dear.' | 10 | /˘········ |
| Then said I: 'Through thine hautboy's rapturous tone | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Unto my lady still this harp makes moan, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And still she deems the cadence deep and clear.' | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Then said my lady: 'Thou art Passion of Love, | 11 | ···/˘··/˘·· |
| And this Love's Worship: both he plights to me. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Thy mastering music walks the sunlit sea: | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/·· |
| But where wan water trembles in the grove | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And the wan moon is all the light thereof, | 10 | ·········· |
| This harp still makes my name its voluntary.' | 11 | ·······/˘˘˘ |
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.