The Birth of Pleasure
At the creation of the EarthPleasure, that divinest birth,From the soil of Heaven did rise,Wrapped in sweet wild melodies--Like an exhalation wreathingTo the sound of air low-breathingThrough Aeolian pines, which makeA shade and shelter to the lakeWhence it rises soft and slow;Her life-breathing [limbs] did flowIn the harmony divineOf an ever-lengthening lineWhich enwrapped her perfect formWith a beauty clear and warm.
About this text
The Birth of Pleasure 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, The Birth of Pleasure, in The Complete Poetical Works, Volume II (1816–1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4798, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shelley-later-poems/the-birth-of-pleasure.html, id L16366.
Form and metre
The Birth of Pleasure is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 86% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 64% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AABB--CCDDEEFF earthA · birthA · riseB · melodiesB · wreathing · breathing · makeC · lakeC · slowD · flowD · divineE · lineE · formF · warmF
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| At the creation of the Earth | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Pleasure, that divinest birth, | 7 | /˘·˘/˘· |
| From the soil of Heaven did rise, | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Wrapped in sweet wild melodies-- | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Like an exhalation wreathing | 8 | ···˘/˘/˘ |
| To the sound of air low-breathing | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Through Aeolian pines, which make | 6 | ······ |
| A shade and shelter to the lake | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Whence it rises soft and slow; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Her life-breathing [limbs] did flow | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| In the harmony divine | 7 | ··/˘˘˘/ |
| Of an ever-lengthening line | 8 | ··/˘/˘˘· |
| Which enwrapped her perfect form | 7 | ····˘/· |
| With a beauty clear and warm. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
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.