I Shall Make Beauty
I shall make beauty out of many things:Lights, colours, motions, sky and earth and sea,The soft unbosoming of all the springsWhich that inscrutable hand allows to me,Odours of flowers, sounds of smitten strings,The voice of many a wind in many a tree,Fields, rivers, moors, swift feet and floating wings,Rocks, caves, and hills that stand and clouds that flee.
Men also and women, beautiful and dear,Shall come and pass and leave a fragrant breath;And my own heart, laughter and pain and fear,The majesties of evil and of death;But never, never shall my verses traceThe loveliness of your most lovely face.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
I Shall Make Beauty 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, I Shall Make Beauty, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/i-shall-make-beauty.html, id L23200.
Form and metre
I Shall Make Beauty is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 ABABABAB thingsA · seaB · springsA · meB · stringsA · treeB · wingsA · fleeB
- 2 ABABCC dearA · breathB · fearA · deathB · traceC · faceC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I shall make beauty out of many things: | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Lights, colours, motions, sky and earth and sea, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| The soft unbosoming of all the springs | 10 | ·········· |
| Which that inscrutable hand allows to me, | 10 | ··˘/˘·˘/·· |
| Odours of flowers, sounds of smitten strings, | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| The voice of many a wind in many a tree, | 10 | ···/···/·· |
| Fields, rivers, moors, swift feet and floating wings, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Rocks, caves, and hills that stand and clouds that flee. | 10 | ·········· |
| Men also and women, beautiful and dear, | 10 | ·/˘·/˘/˘·· |
| Shall come and pass and leave a fragrant breath; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And my own heart, laughter and pain and fear, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| The majesties of evil and of death; | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘··· |
| But never, never shall my verses trace | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| The loveliness of your most lovely face. | 10 | ·/˘˘···/˘· |
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.