Wordsworth
Wordsworth, thy music like a river rollsAmong the mountains, and thy song is fedBy living springs far up the watershed;No whirling flood nor parching drought controlsThe crystal current: even on the shoalsIt murmurs clear and sweet; and when its bedDeepens below mysterious cliffs of dread,Thy voice of peace grows deeper in our souls.
But thou in youth hast known the breaking stressOf passion, and hast trod despair's dry groundBeneath black thoughts that wither and destroy.Ah, wanderer, led by human tendernessHome to the heart of Nature, thou hast foundThe hidden Fountain of Recovered Joy.
Words in this poem
- watershed n.
- The whole region or extent of country which contributes to the supply of a river or lake. [Cf. G. wasserscheide; wasser water + scheide a place where two things separate, fr. scheiden to separate.]
- parching a.
- Scorching; burning; drying.
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Wordsworth 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, Wordsworth, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/wordsworth.html, id L22956.
Form and metre
Wordsworth is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 ABBAABBA rollsA · fedB · watershedB · controlsA · shoalsA · bedB · dreadB · soulsA
- 2 ABCABC stressA · groundB · destroyC · tendernessA · foundB · joyC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Wordsworth, thy music like a river rolls | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| Among the mountains, and thy song is fed | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| By living springs far up the watershed; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| No whirling flood nor parching drought controls | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| The crystal current: even on the shoals | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| It murmurs clear and sweet; and when its bed | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Deepens below mysterious cliffs of dread, | 10 | /˘··˘/˘··· |
| Thy voice of peace grows deeper in our souls. | 10 | ·····/˘·/· |
| But thou in youth hast known the breaking stress | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Of passion, and hast trod despair's dry ground | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| Beneath black thoughts that wither and destroy. | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Ah, wanderer, led by human tenderness | 11 | ·/˘˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| Home to the heart of Nature, thou hast found | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The hidden Fountain of Recovered Joy. | 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.