The Dark Glass
Not I myself know all my love for thee:How should I reach so far, who cannot weighTo-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday?Shall birth and death, and all dark names that beAs doors and windows bared to some loud sea,Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray;And shall my sense pierce love,--the last relayAnd ultimate outpost of eternity?
Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all?One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand,--One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand.Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest callAnd veriest touch of powers primordialThat any hour-girt life may understand.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- 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.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Dark Glass 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, The Dark Glass, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/the-dark-glass.html, id L20954.
Form and metre
The Dark Glass is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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 ABBAABB- theeA · weighB · yesterdayB · beA · seaA · sprayB · relayB · eternity
- 2 ABBAAB allA · sandB · handB · callA · primordialA · understandB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Not I myself know all my love for thee: | 10 | ···/······ |
| How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday? | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be | 10 | ·········· |
| As doors and windows bared to some loud sea, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray; | 10 | ·········· |
| And shall my sense pierce love,--the last relay | 10 | ········/· |
| And ultimate outpost of eternity? | 11 | ·/˘˘/··˘/˘˘ |
| Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all? | 10 | ·········· |
| One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand,-- | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And veriest touch of powers primordial | 11 | ·····/˘˘/˘˘ |
| That any hour-girt life may understand. | 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.