On a Volume of Scholastic Philosophy
What chilly cloister or what lattice dimCast painted light upon this careful page?What thought compulsive held the patient sageTill sound of matin bell or evening hymn?Did visions of the Heavenly Lover swimBefore his eyes in youth, or did stern rageAgainst rash heresy keep green his age?Had he seen God, to write so much of Him?Gone is that irrecoverable mindWith all its phantoms, senseless to mankindAs a dream's trouble or the speech of birds.The breath that stirred his lips he soon resignedTo windy chaos, and we only findThe garnered husks of his disused words.
Words in this poem
- compulsive a.
- Having power to compel; exercising or applying compulsion.
- matin n.
- A French mastiff. [F. matin.]
- irrecoverable a.
- Not capable of being recovered, regained, or remedied; irreparable; as, an irrecoverable loss, debt, or injury.
- resigned a.
- Submissive; yielding; not disposed to resist or murmur.
- chaos n.
- An empty, immeasurable space; a yawning chasm. [L. chaos chaos (in senses 1 & 2), Gr. Chasm.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On a Volume of Scholastic Philosophy is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #49721; 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 Santayana, On a Volume of Scholastic Philosophy, in Poems (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49721, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/santayana-poems/on-a-volume-of-scholastic-philosophy.html, id L21727.
Form and metre
On a Volume of Scholastic Philosophy is 14 lines in a single stanza. 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 86%).
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 ABBAABBACCDCCD dimA · pageB · sageB · hymnA · swimA · rageB · ageB · himA · mindC · mankindC · birdsD · resignedC · findC · wordsD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| What chilly cloister or what lattice dim | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Cast painted light upon this careful page? | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| What thought compulsive held the patient sage | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Till sound of matin bell or evening hymn? | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Did visions of the Heavenly Lover swim | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Before his eyes in youth, or did stern rage | 10 | ·········· |
| Against rash heresy keep green his age? | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| Had he seen God, to write so much of Him? | 10 | ·········· |
| Gone is that irrecoverable mind | 10 | ·········· |
| With all its phantoms, senseless to mankind | 10 | ···/˘/˘·// |
| As a dream's trouble or the speech of birds. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The breath that stirred his lips he soon resigned | 10 | ········˘/ |
| To windy chaos, and we only find | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| The garnered husks of his disused words. | 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.