To --. 'I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden'
I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden,Thou needest not fear mine;My spirit is too deeply ladenEver to burthen thine.
I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion,Thou needest not fear mine;Innocent is the heart's devotionWith which I worship thine.
About this text
To --. 'I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden' 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 --. 'I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden', 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-i-fear-thy-kisses-gentle-maiden.html, id L25650.
Form and metre
To --. 'I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden' is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 maidenA · mineB · ladenA · thineB
- 2 ABAB motionA · mineB · devotionA · thineB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden, | 9 | ···/˘/˘/˘ |
| Thou needest not fear mine; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| My spirit is too deeply laden | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Ever to burthen thine. | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Thou needest not fear mine; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Innocent is the heart's devotion | 9 | /˘˘···˘/˘ |
| With which I worship thine. | 6 | ···/˘· |
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.