The Shepherd of Nymphs
The nymphs a shepherd tookTo guard their snowy sheep;He led them down along the brook,And guided them with pipe and crook,Until he fell asleep.
But when the piping stayed,Across the flowery meadThe milk-white nymphs ran out afraid:O Thyrsis, wake! Your flock has strayed,--The nymphs a shepherd need.
Words in this poem
- snowy a.
- White like snow.
- piping a.
- Playing on a musical pipe. [From Pipe, v.]
- stayed a.
- Staid; fixed; settled; sober; -- now written staid. See Staid.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Shepherd of Nymphs 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, The Shepherd of Nymphs, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/the-shepherd-of-nymphs.html, id L22882.
Form and metre
The Shepherd of Nymphs is 10 lines in 2 stanzas of 5 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
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 ABAAB tookA · sheepB · brookA · crookA · asleepB
- 2 ABAAB stayedA · meadB · afraidA · strayedA · needB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The nymphs a shepherd took | 6 | ···/˘· |
| To guard their snowy sheep; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| He led them down along the brook, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| And guided them with pipe and crook, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Until he fell asleep. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| But when the piping stayed, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Across the flowery mead | 6 | ˘/·/˘· |
| The milk-white nymphs ran out afraid: | 8 | ······˘/ |
| O Thyrsis, wake! Your flock has strayed,-- | 8 | ········ |
| The nymphs a shepherd need. | 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.