The Lake
I am a lake, altered by every wind.The mild South breathes upon me, and I spreadA dance of merry ripples in the sun.The West comes stormily and I am troubled,My waves conflict and black depths show between them.Under the East wind bitter I grow and chill,Slate-coloured, desolate, hopeless. But when blowsA steady wind from the North my motion ceases,I am frozen smooth and hard; my conquered surfaceReturns the skies' cold light without a comment.I make no sound, nor can I; nor can I showWhat depth I have, if any depth, below.
Words in this poem
- stormily adv.
- In a stormy manner.
- coloured a.
- Having color; tinged; dyed; painted; stained.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Lake 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, The Lake, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/the-lake.html, id L23191.
Form and metre
The Lake is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
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 ------AA--BB wind · spread · sun · troubled · them · chill · blowsA · ceasesA · surface · comment · showB · belowB
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 am a lake, altered by every wind. | 11 | ····/˘·/˘˘· |
| The mild South breathes upon me, and I spread | 10 | ·········· |
| A dance of merry ripples in the sun. | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The West comes stormily and I am troubled, | 11 | ···/˘˘···/˘ |
| My waves conflict and black depths show between them. | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| Under the East wind bitter I grow and chill, | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| Slate-coloured, desolate, hopeless. But when blows | 11 | ·/˘/˘·/˘··· |
| A steady wind from the North my motion ceases, | 12 | ·/˘·····/˘/˘ |
| I am frozen smooth and hard; my conquered surface | 12 | ··/˘····/˘/˘ |
| Returns the skies' cold light without a comment. | 11 | ˘/·······/˘ |
| I make no sound, nor can I; nor can I show | 11 | ··········· |
| What depth I have, if any depth, below. | 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.