Apollo
Vainly, O burning Poets!Ye wait for his inspiration,Even as kings of oldStood by the oracle-gates.Hasten back, he will say, hasten backTo your provinces far away!There, at my own good time,Will I send my answer to you.Are ye not kings of song?At last the god cometh!The air runs over with splendor;The fire leaps high on the altar;Melodious thunders shake the ground.Hark to the Delphic responses!Hark! it is the god!
Words in this poem
- delphic a.
- Of or relating to Delphi, or to the famous oracle of that place. [L. Delphicus, fr. Gr. Delphi, a town of Phocis, in Greece, now Kastri.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Apollo is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poetical works of Edmund Clarence Stedman, Project Gutenberg ebook #70763; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edmund Clarence Stedman, Apollo, in The Poetical Works of Edmund Clarence Stedman (1860–1897), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70763, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stedman-poems/apollo.html, id L10647.
Form and metre
Apollo is 15 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%). 87% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 13% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 A--A----------- poetsA · inspiration · old · gatesA · back · away · time · you · song · cometh · splendor · altar · ground · responses · god
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Vainly, O burning Poets! | 7 | /˘·/˘/˘ |
| Ye wait for his inspiration, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Even as kings of old | 6 | /˘···· |
| Stood by the oracle-gates. | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| Hasten back, he will say, hasten back | 9 | /˘····/˘· |
| To your provinces far away! | 8 | ··/˘˘·˘/ |
| There, at my own good time, | 6 | ······ |
| Will I send my answer to you. | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Are ye not kings of song? | 6 | ······ |
| At last the god cometh! | 6 | ····/˘ |
| The air runs over with splendor; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| The fire leaps high on the altar; | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| Melodious thunders shake the ground. | 9 | ˘/˘˘/˘··· |
| Hark to the Delphic responses! | 8 | ···/˘˘/˘ |
| Hark! it is the god! | 5 | ····· |
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.