Roslin and Hawthornden
Fair Roslin Chapel, how divineThe art that reared thy costly shrine!Thy carven columns must have grownBy magic, like a dream in stone.
Yet not within thy storied wallWould I in adoration fall,So gladly as within the glenThat leads to lovely Hawthornden.
A long-drawn aisle, with roof of greenAnd vine-clad pillars, while between,The Esk runs murmuring on its way,In living music night and day.
Within the temple of this woodThe martyrs of the covenant stood,And rolled the psalm, and poured the prayer,From Nature's solemn altar-stair.
Words in this poem
- carven a.
- Wrought by carving; ornamented by carvings; carved.
- storied a.
- Told in a story. [From Story.]
- gladly adv.
- Preferably; by choice. [From Glad, a.]
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Roslin and Hawthornden 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, Roslin and Hawthornden, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/roslin-and-hawthornden.html, id L22757.
Form and metre
Roslin and Hawthornden is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
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 AABB divineA · shrineA · grownB · stoneB
- 2 AA-- wallA · fallA · glen · hawthornden
- 3 AABB greenA · betweenA · wayB · dayB
- 4 AABB woodA · stoodA · prayerB · stairB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Fair Roslin Chapel, how divine | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| The art that reared thy costly shrine! | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Thy carven columns must have grown | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| By magic, like a dream in stone. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Yet not within thy storied wall | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Would I in adoration fall, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| So gladly as within the glen | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| That leads to lovely Hawthornden. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A long-drawn aisle, with roof of green | 8 | ········ |
| And vine-clad pillars, while between, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The Esk runs murmuring on its way, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| In living music night and day. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Within the temple of this wood | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The martyrs of the covenant stood, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And rolled the psalm, and poured the prayer, | 8 | ········ |
| From Nature's solemn altar-stair. | 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.