Canto Fourth: The Prophecy I
The rose is fairest when 't is budding new,And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears;The rose is sweetest washed with morning dewAnd love is loveliest when embalmed in tears.O wilding rose, whom fancy thus endears,I bid your blossoms in my bonnet wave,Emblem of hope and love through future years!'Thus spoke young Norman, heir of Armandave,What time the sun arose on Vennachar's broad wave.
Words in this poem
- wilding a.
- Not tame, domesticated, or cultivated; wild.
- spoke n.
- The radius or ray of a wheel; one of the small bars which are inserted in the hub, or nave, and which serve to support the rim or felly. [OE. spoke, spake, AS, spaca; akin to D. speek, LG. speke, OHG. speihha, G. speiche. sq. root170. Cf. Spike a nail.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto Fourth: The Prophecy I is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Lady of the Lake, Project Gutenberg ebook #3011; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walter Scott, Canto Fourth: The Prophecy I, in The Lady of the Lake (1810), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3011, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/scott-lady-of-the-lake/canto-fourth-the-prophecy-i.html, id L06644.
Form and metre
Canto Fourth: The Prophecy I is 9 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABBCBCC, the pattern of the Spenserian stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.4 syllables. 11% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in the Spenserian stanza, 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 ABABBCBCC newA · fearsB · dewA · tearsB · endearsB · waveC · yearsB · armandaveC · waveC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The rose is fairest when 't is budding new, | 11 | ···/˘···/˘· |
| And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And love is loveliest when embalmed in tears. | 11 | ·······˘/·· |
| O wilding rose, whom fancy thus endears, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| I bid your blossoms in my bonnet wave, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Emblem of hope and love through future years!' | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Thus spoke young Norman, heir of Armandave, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| What time the sun arose on Vennachar's broad wave. | 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.