Our lithe thoughts gambol close to God's abyss,
Our lithe thoughts gambol close to God's abyss,Children whose home is by the precipice.Fear not thy little ones shall o'er it fall:Solid, though viewless, is the girdling wall.
Words in this poem
- lithe v. i.
- To listen or listen to; to hearken to. P. Plowman. [Icel Listen.]
- gambol n.
- A skipping or leaping about in frolic; a hop; a sportive prank. [OE. gambolde, gambaulde, F. gambade, gambol, fr. It. gambata kick, fr. L. gamba leg, akin to F. jambe, OF. also, gambe, fr. L. gamba, hoof or perh. joint: cf. G]
- precipice n.
- A sudden or headlong fall. Fuller. [F. précipice, L. praecipitium, fr. praeceps, - cipitis, headlong; prae before + caput, capitis, the head. See Pre-, and Chief.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- viewless a.
- Not perceivable by the eye; invisible; unseen.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Our lithe thoughts gambol close to God's abyss, is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of William Watson, Project Gutenberg ebook #13179; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Watson, Our lithe thoughts gambol close to God's abyss,, in The Poems of William Watson (1892–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13179, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/watson-poems/our-lithe-thoughts-gambol-close-to-god-s-abyss.html, id L26230.
Form and metre
Our lithe thoughts gambol close to God's abyss, is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 AABB abyssA · precipiceA · fallB · wallB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Our lithe thoughts gambol close to God's abyss, | 10 | /··/˘···˘/ |
| Children whose home is by the precipice. | 10 | /˘·····/˘˘ |
| Fear not thy little ones shall o'er it fall: | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Solid, though viewless, is the girdling wall. | 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.