Fragment: A Roman's Chamber
In the cave which wild weeds coverWait for thine aethereal lover;For the pallid moon is waning,O'er the spiral cypress hangingAnd the moon no cloud is staining.
It was once a Roman's chamber,Where he kept his darkest revels,And the wild weeds twine and clamber;It was then a chasm for devils.
Words in this poem
- waning n.
- The act or process of waning, or decreasing.
- clamber v. i.
- To climb with difficulty, or with hands and feet; -- also used figuratively. [OE clambren, clameren, to heap together, climb; akin to Icel. klambra to clamp, G. klammern. Cf. Clamp, Climb.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Fragment: A Roman's Chamber is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #4798; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Fragment: A Roman's Chamber, in The Complete Poetical Works, Volume II (1816–1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4798, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shelley-later-poems/fragment-a-roman-s-chamber.html, id L16382.
Form and metre
Fragment: A Roman's Chamber is 9 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 9 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 22% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 AAB-B coverA · loverA · waningB · hanging · stainingB
- 2 -A-A chamber · revelsA · clamber · devilsA
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| In the cave which wild weeds cover | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Wait for thine aethereal lover; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| For the pallid moon is waning, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| O'er the spiral cypress hanging | 8 | ··/˘/˘/˘ |
| And the moon no cloud is staining. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| It was once a Roman's chamber, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Where he kept his darkest revels, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| And the wild weeds twine and clamber; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| It was then a chasm for devils. | 9 | ····/˘·/˘ |
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.