Sierra Madre
O Mother mountains! billowing far to the snow-lands,Robed in aerial amethyst, silver, and blue,Why do ye look so proudly down on the lowlands?What have their groves and gardens to do with you?
Theirs is the languorous charm of the orange and myrtle,Theirs are the fruitage and fragrance of Eden of old,--Broad-boughed oaks in the meadows fair and fertile,Dark-leaved orchards gleaming with globes of gold.
You, in your solitude standing, lofty and lonely,Bear neither garden nor grove on your barren breasts;Rough is the rock-loving growth of your canyons, and onlyStorm-battered pines and fir-trees cling to your crests.
Why are ye throned so high, and arrayed in splendourRicher than all the fields at your feet can claim?What is your right, ye rugged peaks, to the tenderQueenly promise and pride of the mother-name?
Answered the mountains, dim in the distance dreaming:"Ours are the forests that treasure the riches of rain;Ours are the secret springs and the rivulets gleamingSilverly down through the manifold bloom of the plain.
"Vain were the toiling of men in the dust of the dry land,Vain were the ploughing and planting in waterless fields,Save for the life-giving currents we send from the sky-land,Save for the fruit our embrace with the storm-cloud yields."
O mother mountains, Madre Sierra, I love you!Rightly you reign o'er the vale that your bounty fills--Kissed by the sun, or with big, bright stars above you,--I murmur your name and lift up mine eyes to the hills.
Words in this poem
- amethyst
- A variety of crystallized quartz, of a purple or bluish violet color, of different shades. It is much used as a jeweler's stone. [F. ametiste, amatiste, F. améthyste, L. amethystus, fr. Gr. Mead.]
- languorous a.
- Producing, or tending to produce, languor; characterized by languor. [From Languor: cf. F. langoureux.]
- fruitage n.
- Fruit, collectively; fruit, in general; fruitery. [F. fruitage.]
- eden n.
- The garden where Adam and Eve first dwelt; hence, a delightful region or residence. [Heb. eden delight, pleasure; also, a place of pleasure, Eden.]
- splendour n.
- Great brightness; brilliant luster; brilliancy; as, the splendor ot the sun. B. Jonson. [L. fr. splendere to shine: cf. F. splendeur.]
- queenly a.
- Like, becoming, or suitable to, a queen. [AS. cwenlic feminine.]
- silverly adv.
- Like silver in appearance or in sound.
- waterless a.
- Destitute of water; dry.
- sierra n.
- A ridge of mountain and craggy rocks, with a serrated or irregular outline; as, the Sierra Nevada. [Sp., properly, a saw, fr. L. serra a saw. See Serrate.]
- rightly adv.
- Straightly; directly; in front. [AS. richtlice.]
- vale n.
- A tract of low ground, or of land between hills; a valley. [OE. val, F. val, L. vallis; perhaps akin to Gr. Avalanche, Vail to lower, Valley.]
- bounty n.
- Goodness, kindness; virtue; worth. [OE. bounte goodness, kindness, F. bonté, fr. L. bonitas, fr. bonus good, for older duonus; cf. Skr. duvas honor, respect.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sierra Madre 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, Sierra Madre, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/sierra-madre.html, id L22775.
Form and metre
Sierra Madre is 28 lines in 7 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. 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.
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 ABAB landsA · blueB · lowlandsA · youB
- 2 ABAB myrtleA · oldB · fertileA · goldB
- 3 ABAB lonelyA · breastsB · onlyA · crestsB
- 4 ABAB splendourA · claimB · tenderA · nameB
- 5 ABAB dreamingA · rainB · gleamingA · plainB
- 6 ABAB landA · fieldsB · landA · yieldsB
- 7 ABAB youA · fillsB · youA · hillsB
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 Mother mountains! billowing far to the snow-lands, | 12 | ·/˘/˘/˘····· |
| Robed in aerial amethyst, silver, and blue, | 10 | ··/˘/˘/˘·· |
| Why do ye look so proudly down on the lowlands? | 12 | ·····/˘···/· |
| What have their groves and gardens to do with you? | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| Theirs is the languorous charm of the orange and myrtle, | 14 | ···/˘˘···/˘·/˘ |
| Theirs are the fruitage and fragrance of Eden of old,-- | 13 | ···/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| Broad-boughed oaks in the meadows fair and fertile, | 11 | ·····/···/˘ |
| Dark-leaved orchards gleaming with globes of gold. | 10 | ··/˘/˘···· |
| You, in your solitude standing, lofty and lonely, | 13 | ···/˘·/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Bear neither garden nor grove on your barren breasts; | 12 | ·/˘/˘····/˘· |
| Rough is the rock-loving growth of your canyons, and only | 14 | ····/˘···/˘·/˘ |
| Storm-battered pines and fir-trees cling to your crests. | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| Why are ye throned so high, and arrayed in splendour | 12 | ·······˘/·/˘ |
| Richer than all the fields at your feet can claim? | 11 | /˘········· |
| What is your right, ye rugged peaks, to the tender | 12 | ·····/˘···/˘ |
| Queenly promise and pride of the mother-name? | 11 | /˘/˘····/˘· |
| Answered the mountains, dim in the distance dreaming: | 12 | /˘·/˘···/˘/˘ |
| "Ours are the forests that treasure the riches of rain; | 13 | /··/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| Ours are the secret springs and the rivulets gleaming | 13 | /··/˘······/˘ |
| Silverly down through the manifold bloom of the plain. | 13 | /˘˘···/˘····· |
| "Vain were the toiling of men in the dust of the dry land, | 14 | ···/˘········· |
| Vain were the ploughing and planting in waterless fields, | 13 | ···/˘·/˘·/˘˘· |
| Save for the life-giving currents we send from the sky-land, | 14 | ····/˘/˘······ |
| Save for the fruit our embrace with the storm-cloud yields." | 12 | ····/˘/····· |
| O mother mountains, Madre Sierra, I love you! | 13 | ·/˘/˘/·˘/˘··· |
| Rightly you reign o'er the vale that your bounty fills-- | 12 | /˘·······/˘· |
| Kissed by the sun, or with big, bright stars above you,-- | 12 | ············ |
| I murmur your name and lift up mine eyes to the hills. | 13 | ·/˘·········· |
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.