To Constantia, Singing: The Same, Stanzas 1 and 2
Cease, cease--for such wild lessons madmen learnThus to be lost, and thus to sink and diePerchance were death indeed!--Constantia turnIn thy dark eyes a power like light doth lieEven though the sounds its voice that wereBetween thy lips are laid to sleep:Within thy breath, and on thy hairLike odour, it is [lingering] yetAnd from thy touch like fire doth leap--Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet--Alas, that the torn heart can bleed but not forget.
Of dreams unseen but felt in youthful slumbersWild sweet yet incommunicably strangeThou breathest now in fast ascending numbers...
Words in this poem
- constantia n.
- A superior wine, white and red, from Constantia, in Cape Colony.
- odour n.
- Any smell, whether fragrant or offensive; scent; perfume. [OE. odor, odour, OF. odor, odour, F. odeur, fr. L. odor; akin to olere to smell, Gr. Olfactory, Osmium, Ozone, Redolent.]
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Constantia, Singing: The Same, Stanzas 1 and 2 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, To Constantia, Singing: The Same, Stanzas 1 and 2, in Ode to the West Wind, and Other Poems (1816–1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4798, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shelley-later-poems/to-constantia-singing-the-same-stanzas-1-and-2.html, id L25643.
Form and metre
To Constantia, Singing: The Same, Stanzas 1 and 2 is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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-C-DCDD learnA · dieB · turnA · lieB · were · sleepC · hair · yetD · leapC · wetD · forgetD
- 2 A-A slumbersA · strange · numbersA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Cease, cease--for such wild lessons madmen learn | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Thus to be lost, and thus to sink and die | 10 | ·········· |
| Perchance were death indeed!--Constantia turn | 11 | ˘/··˘/˘/˘˘· |
| In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie | 10 | ·····/···· |
| Even though the sounds its voice that were | 9 | /˘······· |
| Between thy lips are laid to sleep: | 8 | ········ |
| Within thy breath, and on thy hair | 8 | ········ |
| Like odour, it is [lingering] yet | 9 | ·/˘··/˘˘· |
| And from thy touch like fire doth leap-- | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet-- | 10 | /····/˘··· |
| Alas, that the torn heart can bleed but not forget. | 12 | ˘/········˘/ |
| Of dreams unseen but felt in youthful slumbers | 11 | ··˘/···/˘/˘ |
| Wild sweet yet incommunicably strange | 10 | ·········· |
| Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers... | 11 | ·/˘···˘/˘/˘ |
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.