Sicily, December, 1908
O garden isle, beloved by Sun and Sea,Whose bluest billows kiss thy curving bays,Whose light infolds thy hills with golden rays,Filling with fruit each dark-leaved orange-tree,What hidden hatred hath the Earth for thee,That once again, in these dark, dreadful days,Breaks forth in trembling rage, and swiftly laysThy beauty waste in wreck and agony!Is Nature, then, a strife of jealous powers,And man the plaything of unconscious fate?Not so, my troubled heart! God reigns above,And man is greatest in his darkest hours.Walking amid the cities desolate,Behold the Son of God in human love!
Words in this poem
- isle v. t.
- To cause to become an island, or like an island; to surround or encompass; to island.
- dreadful a.
- Full of dread or terror; fearful.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- plaything n.
- A thing to play with; a toy; anything that serves to amuse.
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sicily, December, 1908 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, Sicily, December, 1908, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/sicily-december-1908.html, id L22910.
Form and metre
Sicily, December, 1908 is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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.
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 ABBAABB-CDECDE seaA · baysB · raysB · treeA · theeA · daysB · laysB · agony · powersC · fateD · aboveE · hoursC · desolateD · loveE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O garden isle, beloved by Sun and Sea, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| Whose bluest billows kiss thy curving bays, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Whose light infolds thy hills with golden rays, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Filling with fruit each dark-leaved orange-tree, | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| What hidden hatred hath the Earth for thee, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| That once again, in these dark, dreadful days, | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Breaks forth in trembling rage, and swiftly lays | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Thy beauty waste in wreck and agony! | 10 | ·/˘····/˘˘ |
| Is Nature, then, a strife of jealous powers, | 11 | ·/˘····/˘/˘ |
| And man the plaything of unconscious fate? | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
| Not so, my troubled heart! God reigns above, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And man is greatest in his darkest hours. | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Walking amid the cities desolate, | 10 | /˘˘/·/˘/˘· |
| Behold the Son of God in human love! | 10 | ˘/·····/˘· |
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.