A Chant
Gently the petals fall as the tree gently swaysThat has known many springs and many petals fallYear after year to strew the green deserted waysAnd the statue and the pond and the low, broken wall.
Faded is the memory of old things done,Peace floats on the ruins of ancient festival;They lie and forget in the warmth of the sun,And a sky silver-blue arches over all.
O softly, O tenderly, the heart now stirsWith desires faint and formless; and, seeking not, I findQuiet thoughts that flash like azure kingfishersAcross the luminous, tranquil mirror of the mind.
Words in this poem
- tenderly adv.
- In a tender manner; with tenderness; mildly; gently; softly; in a manner not to injure or give pain; with pity or affection; kindly.
- formless a.
- Shapeless; without a determinate form; wanting regularity of shape.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Chant is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems - First Series, Project Gutenberg ebook #37860; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Collings Squire, A Chant, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/a-chant.html, id L23152.
Form and metre
A Chant is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 70%).
See other poems in trochaic hexameter.
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 swaysA · fallB · waysA · wallB
- 2 ABAB doneA · festivalB · sunA · allB
- 3 ABAB stirsA · findB · kingfishersA · mindB
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 trochaic hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Gently the petals fall as the tree gently sways | 12 | /˘·/˘····/˘· |
| That has known many springs and many petals fall | 11 | ···/··/˘/˘· |
| Year after year to strew the green deserted ways | 12 | ········˘/˘· |
| And the statue and the pond and the low, broken wall. | 13 | ··/·······/˘· |
| Faded is the memory of old things done, | 11 | /˘··/˘˘···· |
| Peace floats on the ruins of ancient festival; | 12 | ····/˘·/˘/˘˘ |
| They lie and forget in the warmth of the sun, | 11 | ···˘/······ |
| And a sky silver-blue arches over all. | 11 | ···/˘·/˘··· |
| O softly, O tenderly, the heart now stirs | 11 | ·/˘·/˘˘···· |
| With desires faint and formless; and, seeking not, I find | 13 | ·˘/··/˘·/˘··· |
| Quiet thoughts that flash like azure kingfishers | 11 | /˘····/˘/·˘ |
| Across the luminous, tranquil mirror of the mind. | 12 | ˘/·/˘/˘/˘··· |
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.