The Trees of the Garden
Ye who have passed Death's haggard hills; and yeWhom trees that knew your sires shall cease to knowAnd still stand silent:--is it all a show,A wisp that laughs upon the wall?--decreeOf some inexorable supremacyWhich ever, as man strains his blind surmiseFrom depth to ominous depth, looks past his eyes,Sphinx-faced with unabashed augury?
Nay, rather question the Earth's self. InvokeThe storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown to-dayWhose roots are hillocks where the children play;Or ask the silver sapling 'neath what yokeThose stars, his spray-crown's clustering gems, shall wageTheir journey still when his boughs shrink with age.
Words in this poem
- haggard a.
- Wild or intractable; disposed to break away from duty; untamed; as, a haggard or refractory hawk. Shak [F. hagard; of German origin, and prop. meaning, of the hegde or woods, wild, untamed. See Hedge, 1st Haw, and -ard.]
- 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,]
- wisp n.
- A small bundle, as of straw or other like substance. [OE. wisp, wips; probably akin to D. & G. wisch, Icel. visk, and perhaps to L. virga a twig, rod. Cf. Verge a rod, Whisk, n.]
- wage v. i.
- To bind one's self; to engage.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Trees of the Garden 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 Trees of the Garden, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/the-trees-of-the-garden.html, id L21005.
Form and metre
The Trees of the Garden 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 ABBA-CC- yeA · knowB · showB · decreeA · supremacy · surmiseC · eyesC · augury
- 2 ABBACC invokeA · dayB · playB · yokeA · wageC · ageC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ye who have passed Death's haggard hills; and ye | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Whom trees that knew your sires shall cease to know | 10 | ·········· |
| And still stand silent:--is it all a show, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| A wisp that laughs upon the wall?--decree | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Of some inexorable supremacy | 11 | ···/˘˘˘˘/˘˘ |
| Which ever, as man strains his blind surmise | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| From depth to ominous depth, looks past his eyes, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Sphinx-faced with unabashed augury? | 10 | ··˘··˘//˘˘ |
| Nay, rather question the Earth's self. Invoke | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| The storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown to-day | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Whose roots are hillocks where the children play; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Or ask the silver sapling 'neath what yoke | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Those stars, his spray-crown's clustering gems, shall wage | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Their journey still when his boughs shrink with age. | 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.