Passage of the Apennines
Listen, listen, Mary mine,To the whisper of the Apennine,It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar,Or like the sea on a northern shore,Heard in its raging ebb and flowBy the captives pent in the cave below.The Apennine in the light of dayIs a mighty mountain dim and gray,Which between the earth and sky doth lay;But when night comes, a chaos dreadOn the dim starlight then is spread,And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm,Shrouding...
Words in this poem
- apennine a.
- Of, pertaining to, or designating, the Apennines, a chain of mountains extending through Italy. [L. Apenninus, fr. Celtic pen, or ben, peak, mountain.]
- pent p. p.
- Penned or shut up; confined; -- often with up. [From Pen, v. t.]
- chaos n.
- An empty, immeasurable space; a yawning chasm. [L. chaos chaos (in senses 1 & 2), Gr. Chasm.]
- starlight n.
- The light given by the stars.
- shrouding n.
- The shrouds. See Shroud, n., 7.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Passage of the Apennines 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, Passage of the Apennines, in The Complete Poetical Works, Volume II (1816–1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4798, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shelley-later-poems/passage-of-the-apennines.html, id L16333.
Form and metre
Passage of the Apennines is 13 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 23% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 --AABBCCCDD-- mine · apennine · roarA · shoreA · flowB · belowB · dayC · grayC · layC · dreadD · spreadD · storm · shrouding
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Listen, listen, Mary mine, | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| To the whisper of the Apennine, | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Or like the sea on a northern shore, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Heard in its raging ebb and flow | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| By the captives pent in the cave below. | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| The Apennine in the light of day | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Is a mighty mountain dim and gray, | 9 | ··/˘/˘··· |
| Which between the earth and sky doth lay; | 9 | ········· |
| But when night comes, a chaos dread | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| On the dim starlight then is spread, | 8 | ···/···· |
| And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm, | 11 | ··/˘··˘/··· |
| Shrouding... | 2 | /˘ |
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.