Honors
When the column of light on the waters is glassed,As blent in one glow seem the shine and the stream;But wave after wave through the glory has passed,Just catches, and flies as it catches, the beamSo honors but mirror on mortals their light;Not the man but the place that he passes is bright.
Words in this poem
- blent p. p.
- Blinded. Also (Chaucer), 3d sing. pres. Blindeth.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Honors is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Schiller — Third period, Project Gutenberg ebook #6796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Friedrich Schiller, Honors, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/honors.html, id L21882.
Form and metre
Honors is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCC. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 98%).
See other poems in anapaestic tetrameter.
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 ABABCC glassedA · streamB · passedA · beamB · lightC · brightC
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When the column of light on the waters is glassed, | 12 | ··/˘····/˘·· |
| As blent in one glow seem the shine and the stream; | 11 | ··········· |
| But wave after wave through the glory has passed, | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Just catches, and flies as it catches, the beam | 11 | ·/˘····/˘·· |
| So honors but mirror on mortals their light; | 11 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| Not the man but the place that he passes is bright. | 12 | ········/˘·· |
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.