Artemis Altera
O full of candour and compassion,Whom love and worship both would praise,Love cannot frame nor worship fashionThe image of your fearless ways!
How show your noble brow's dark pallor,Your chivalrous casque of ebon hair,Your eyes' bright strength, your lips' soft valour,Your supple shoulders and hands that dare?
Our souls when naively you examine,Your sword of innocence, flaming, huge,Sweeps over us, and there is famineWithin the ports of subterfuge.
You hate contempt and love not laughter;With your sharp spear of virgin willYou harry the wicked strong; but after,O huntress who could never kill,
Should they be trodden down or pierced,Swift, swift, you fly with burning cheekTo place your beauty's shield reversedAbove the vile defenceless weak!
Words in this poem
- candour n.
- Whiteness; brightness; (as applied to moral conditions) usullied purity; innocence. [L. candor, fr. candëre; cf. F. candeur. See candid.]
- pallor n.
- Paleness; want of color; pallidity; as, pallor of the complexion. Jer. Taylor. [L., fr. pallere to be or look pale. See Pale, a.]
- casque n.
- A piece of defensive or ornamental armor (with or without a vizor) for the head and neck; a helmet. [F. casque, fr. Sp. casco See Cask.]
- ebon a.
- Consisting of ebony.
- famine n.
- General scarcity of food; dearth; a want of provisions; destitution. [F. famine, fr. L. fames hunger; cf. Gr. hani loss, lack, ha to leave.]
- subterfuge n.
- That to which one resorts for escape or concealment; an artifice employed to escape censure or the force of an argument, or to justify opinions or conduct; a shift; an evasion. [F., from LL. subterfugium, fr. L. subterfugere to flee secretly, to escape; subter under + fugere to flee. See Fugitive.]
- harry v. i.
- To make a predatory incursion; to plunder or lay waste.
- huntress n.
- A woman who hunts or follows the chase; as, the huntress Diana.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Artemis Altera 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, Artemis Altera, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/artemis-altera.html, id L23159.
Form and metre
Artemis Altera is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The commonest rhyme scheme is ABAB, in 2 of the 5 stanzas; the rest vary or could not be confirmed. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 ABAB compassionA · praiseB · fashionA · waysB
- 2 -A-A pallor · hairA · valour · dareA
- 3 -A-A examine · hugeA · famine · subterfugeA
- 4 ABAB laughterA · willB · afterA · killB
- 5 -A-A pierced · cheekA · reversed · weakA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O full of candour and compassion, | 9 | ···/˘·˘/˘ |
| Whom love and worship both would praise, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Love cannot frame nor worship fashion | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| The image of your fearless ways! | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| How show your noble brow's dark pallor, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Your chivalrous casque of ebon hair, | 9 | ·/˘˘··/˘· |
| Your eyes' bright strength, your lips' soft valour, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Your supple shoulders and hands that dare? | 9 | ·/˘/˘···· |
| Our souls when naively you examine, | 10 | /··˘/˘·˘/˘ |
| Your sword of innocence, flaming, huge, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Sweeps over us, and there is famine | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Within the ports of subterfuge. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| You hate contempt and love not laughter; | 9 | ··˘/···/˘ |
| With your sharp spear of virgin will | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| You harry the wicked strong; but after, | 10 | ·/˘·/˘···· |
| O huntress who could never kill, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Should they be trodden down or pierced, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Swift, swift, you fly with burning cheek | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To place your beauty's shield reversed | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Above the vile defenceless weak! | 9 | ········· |
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.