To Constantia
The rose that drinks the fountain dewIn the pleasant air of noon,Grows pale and blue with altered hue--In the gaze of the nightly moon;For the planet of frost, so cold and bright,Makes it wan with her borrowed light.
Such is my heart--roses are fair,And that at best a withered blossom;But thy false care did idly wearIts withered leaves in a faithless bosom;And fed with love, like air and dew,Its growth--
Words in this poem
- nightly a.
- Of or pertaining to the night, or to every night; happening or done by night, or every night; as, nightly shades; he kept nightly vigils.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Constantia 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, 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.html, id L25644.
Form and metre
To Constantia is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See 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 ABABCC dewA · noonB · hueA · moonB · brightC · lightC
- 2 A-A--- fairA · blossom · wearA · bosom · dew · growth
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The rose that drinks the fountain dew | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In the pleasant air of noon, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Grows pale and blue with altered hue-- | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In the gaze of the nightly moon; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| For the planet of frost, so cold and bright, | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| Makes it wan with her borrowed light. | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Such is my heart--roses are fair, | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| And that at best a withered blossom; | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| But thy false care did idly wear | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom; | 10 | ·/˘···/˘/˘ |
| And fed with love, like air and dew, | 8 | ········ |
| Its growth-- | 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.