Early Verses
The After-EchoDulcioraThree Alpine SonnetsMatinsThe Parting and the Coming GuestIf All the SkiesWings of a DoveThe Fall of the LeavesA Snow-SongRoslin and Hawthornden
About this text
Early Verses is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, Project Gutenberg ebook #16229; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Van Dyke, Early Verses, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/early-verses.html, id L22734.
Form and metre
Early Verses is 10 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The After-Echo | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Dulciora | 3 | ··· |
| Three Alpine Sonnets | 5 | ·/·/˘ |
| Matins | 2 | ·· |
| The Parting and the Coming Guest | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| If All the Skies | 4 | ···· |
| Wings of a Dove | 4 | ···· |
| The Fall of the Leaves | 5 | ····· |
| A Snow-Song | 3 | ··· |
| Roslin and Hawthornden | 6 | /˘···· |
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.