Lyonesse
In Lyonesse was beauty enough, men say:Long Summer loaded the orchards to excess,And fertile lowlands lengthening far away,In Lyonesse.
Came a term to that land's old favoredness:Past the sea-walls, crumbled in thundering spray,Rolled the green waves, ravening, merciless.
Through bearded boughs immobile in cool decay,Where sea-bloom covers corroding palaces,The mermaid glides with a curious glance to-day,In Lyonesse.
Words in this poem
- thundering a.
- Emitting thunder.
- ravening n.
- Eagerness for plunder; rapacity; extortion. Luke xi. 39.
- immobile a.
- Incapable of being moved; immovable; fixed; stable. Prof. [L. immobilis: cf. F. immobile. See Immobility.]
- mermaid n.
- A fabled marine creature, typically represented as having the upper part like that of a woman, and the lower like a fish; a sea nymph, sea woman, or woman fish. [AS. mere lake, sea. See Mere lake, and maid.]
- curious a.
- Difficult to please or satisfy; solicitous to be correct; careful; scrupulous; nice; exact. [OF. curios, curius, F. curieux, L. curiosus careful, inquisitive, fr. cura care. See Cure.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lyonesse is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #617; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alan Seeger, Lyonesse, in Poems (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #617, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/seeger-poems/lyonesse.html, id L12969.
Form and metre
Lyonesse is 11 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 71%). 72% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.1 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 ABAB sayA · excessB · awayA · lyonesseB
- 2 A-A favorednessA · spray · mercilessA
- 3 A-A- decayA · palaces · dayA · lyonesse
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In Lyonesse was beauty enough, men say: | 10 | ····/˘˘/·· |
| Long Summer loaded the orchards to excess, | 11 | ·/˘/˘·/˘·/· |
| And fertile lowlands lengthening far away, | 10 | ·/˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| In Lyonesse. | 3 | ··· |
| Came a term to that land's old favoredness: | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| Past the sea-walls, crumbled in thundering spray, | 10 | ····/˘·/˘· |
| Rolled the green waves, ravening, merciless. | 10 | ····/˘˘/˘˘ |
| Through bearded boughs immobile in cool decay, | 11 | ·/˘·˘/˘··˘/ |
| Where sea-bloom covers corroding palaces, | 11 | ···/˘˘/˘/˘˘ |
| The mermaid glides with a curious glance to-day, | 11 | ·/····/˘··· |
| In Lyonesse. | 3 | ··· |
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.