The Vision of Love
The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream,And night, like a diamond dome, stood still in our dream.Your eyes like burnished stones or as stars were brightWith the sudden vision that made us one with the night.
We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting hereThe breasts that were lit with life and the lips so near;Till the wizard willows waved in the wind and drewMe away from the fulness of love and down to you.
Our love was so vast that it filled the heavens up:But the soft white form I held was an empty cup,When the willows called me back to earth with their sigh,And we moved as shades through the deep that was you and I.
About this text
The Vision of Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Divine Vision, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #36913; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George William Russell, The Vision of Love, in The Divine Vision and Other Poems (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36913, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/russell-divine-vision/the-vision-of-love.html, id L11550.
Form and metre
The Vision of Love is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is alexandrines, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 73%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.1 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in alexandrines.
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 AABB streamA · dreamA · brightB · nightB
- 2 AABB hereA · nearA · drewB · youB
- 3 AABB upA · cupA · sighB · iB
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 alexandrines. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The twilight fleeted away in pearl on the stream, | 12 | ·/·/˘˘/····· |
| And night, like a diamond dome, stood still in our dream. | 12 | ····/˘····/· |
| Your eyes like burnished stones or as stars were bright | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| With the sudden vision that made us one with the night. | 13 | ··/˘/˘······· |
| We loved in infinite spaces, forgetting here | 11 | ···/˘/˘˘/˘· |
| The breasts that were lit with life and the lips so near; | 12 | ············ |
| Till the wizard willows waved in the wind and drew | 12 | ··/˘/······· |
| Me away from the fulness of love and down to you. | 13 | ·˘/··/˘······ |
| Our love was so vast that it filled the heavens up: | 12 | /········/˘· |
| But the soft white form I held was an empty cup, | 12 | ·········/˘· |
| When the willows called me back to earth with their sigh, | 12 | ··/········· |
| And we moved as shades through the deep that was you and I. | 13 | ············· |
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.