Love in a Look
Let me but feel thy look's embrace,Transparent, pure, and warm,And I'll not ask to touch thy face,Or fold thee in mine arm.For in thine eyes a girl doth rise,Arrayed in candid bliss,And draws me to her with a charmMore close than any kiss.
A loving-cup of golden wine,Songs of a silver brook,And fragrant breaths of eglantine,Are mingled in thy look.More fair they are than any star,Thy topaz eyes divine--And deep within their trysting-nookThy spirit blends with mine.
Words in this poem
- nook n.
- A narrow place formed by an angle in bodies or between bodies; a corner; a recess; a secluded retreat. [OE. nok; cf. Gael. & Ir. niuc.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love in a Look 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, Love in a Look, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/love-in-a-look.html, id L22810.
Form and metre
Love in a Look is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
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 A-AB-CBC embraceA · warm · faceA · armB · rise · blissC · charmB · kissC
- 2 ABAB-ABA wineA · brookB · eglantineA · lookB · star · divineA · nookB · mineA
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.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Let me but feel thy look's embrace, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Transparent, pure, and warm, | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| And I'll not ask to touch thy face, | 8 | ········ |
| Or fold thee in mine arm. | 6 | ······ |
| For in thine eyes a girl doth rise, | 8 | ········ |
| Arrayed in candid bliss, | 6 | ˘/·/˘· |
| And draws me to her with a charm | 8 | ········ |
| More close than any kiss. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| A loving-cup of golden wine, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Songs of a silver brook, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And fragrant breaths of eglantine, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Are mingled in thy look. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| More fair they are than any star, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Thy topaz eyes divine-- | 6 | ·/··˘/ |
| And deep within their trysting-nook | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Thy spirit blends with mine. | 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.