I wake, I rise: from end to end

Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) · 1850

iambic tetrameter · ABBA · 20 lines · from In Memoriam A.H.H.

I wake, I rise: from end to end,Of all the landscape underneathI find no place that does not breatheSome gracious memory of my friend:

No gray old grange, or lonely fold,Or low morass and whispering reed,Or simple stile from mead to mead,Or sheepwalk up the windy wold;

Nor hoary knoll of ash and hawThat hears the latest linnet trill,Nor quarry trench’d along the hill,And haunted by the wrangling daw;

Nor runlet tinkling from the rock;Nor pastoral rivulet that swervesTo left and right thro’ meadowy curves,That feed the mothers of the flock;

But each has pleased a kindred eye,And each reflects a kindlier day;And, leaving these, to pass away,I think once more he seems to die.

Words in this poem

grange n.
A building for storing grain; a granary. [F. grange barn, LL. granea, from L. granum grain. See Grain a kernel.]
morass n.
A tract of soft, wet ground; a marsh; a fen. Morass ore. (Min.) See Bog ore, under Bog. [OE. marras, mareis (perh. through D. moeras), fr. F. marais, prob. from L. mare sea, in LL., any body of water; but perh. influenced by some German word. See Me]
stile n.
A pin set on the face of a dial, to cast a shadow; a style. See Style. Moxon. [See Style.]
wold n.
A wood; a forest. [OE. wold, wald, AS. weald, wald, a wood, forest; akin to OFries. & OS. wald, D. woud, G. wald, Icel. völlr, a field, and probably to Gr. va a garden, inclosure.]
hoary a.
White or whitish."The hoary willows."
haunted a.
Inhabited by, or subject to the visits of, apparitions; frequented by a ghost.
runlet n.
A little run or stream; a streamlet; a brook. [Run + -let.]
meadowy a.
Of or pertaining to meadows; resembling, or consisting of, meadow.

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

I wake, I rise: from end to end is in the public domain. This text is taken from In memoriam, Project Gutenberg ebook #70950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.

Cite as: Alfred Tennyson, I wake, I rise: from end to end, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-98.html, id L18458.

Form and metre

I wake, I rise: from end to end is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.

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. 1 ABBA endA · underneathB · breatheB · friendA
  2. 2 ABBA foldA · reedB · meadB · woldA
  3. 3 ABBA hawA · trillB · hillB · dawA
  4. 4 ABBA rockA · swervesB · curvesB · flockA
  5. 5 ABBA eyeA · dayB · awayB · dieA
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.

LineSyl.Stress
I wake, I rise: from end to end,8········
Of all the landscape underneath8···/··˘/
I find no place that does not breathe8········
Some gracious memory of my friend:8·/˘/˘···
No gray old grange, or lonely fold,8·····/˘·
Or low morass and whispering reed,8··˘/·/˘·
Or simple stile from mead to mead,8·/˘·····
Or sheepwalk up the windy wold;8·····/˘·
Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw8·/˘·····
That hears the latest linnet trill,8···/˘/˘·
Nor quarry trench’d along the hill,8·/˘·˘/··
And haunted by the wrangling daw;8·/˘··/˘·
Nor runlet tinkling from the rock;8·/˘/˘···
Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves8·/˘/˘˘··
To left and right thro’ meadowy curves,9·····/˘˘·
That feed the mothers of the flock;8···/˘···
But each has pleased a kindred eye,8·····/˘·
And each reflects a kindlier day;8··˘/····
And, leaving these, to pass away,8·/˘···˘/
I think once more he seems to die.8········

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.

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