Of a Tree Cut in Paper
Fair hand! that can on virgin paper write,Yet from the stain of ink preserve it white;Whose travel o'er that silver field does showLike track of leverets in morning snow.Love's image thus in purest minds is wrought,Without a spot or blemish to the thought.Strange, that your fingers should the pencil foil,Without the help of colours or of oil!For though a painter boughs and leaves can make,'Tis you alone can make them bend and shake;Whose breath salutes your new-created grove,Like southern winds, and makes it gently move.Orpheus could make the forest dance; but youCan make the motion and the forest too.
Words in this poem
- orpheus n.
- The famous mythic Thracian poet, son of the Muse Calliope, and husband of Eurydice. He is reputed to have had power to entrance beasts and inanimate objects by the music of his lyre.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Of a Tree Cut in Paper is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham, Project Gutenberg ebook #12322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edmund Waller, Of a Tree Cut in Paper, in Cooper's Hill, and Other Poems (1645–1668), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waller-denham/of-a-tree-cut-in-paper.html, id L09062.
Form and metre
Of a Tree Cut in Paper is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 11% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCCDDEEFFGG writeA · whiteA · showB · snowB · wroughtC · thoughtC · foilD · oilD · makeE · shakeE · groveF · moveF · youG · tooG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Fair hand! that can on virgin paper write, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Yet from the stain of ink preserve it white; | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Whose travel o'er that silver field does show | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Like track of leverets in morning snow. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Love's image thus in purest minds is wrought, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Without a spot or blemish to the thought. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Strange, that your fingers should the pencil foil, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Without the help of colours or of oil! | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| For though a painter boughs and leaves can make, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| 'Tis you alone can make them bend and shake; | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Whose breath salutes your new-created grove, | 10 | ··˘/··˘/˘· |
| Like southern winds, and makes it gently move. | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Orpheus could make the forest dance; but you | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| Can make the motion and the forest too. | 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.