"Scentless Flow'Rs I Bring Thee"
Scentless flow'rs I bring thee--yetIn thy bosom be they set;In thy bosom each one growsFragrant beyond any rose.
Sweet enough were she who could,In thy heart's sweet neighbourhood,Some redundant sweetness thusBorrow from that overplus.
Words in this poem
- scentless a.
- Having no scent.
- borrow v. t.
- To receive from another as a loan, with the implied or expressed intention of returning the identical article or its equivalent in kind; -- the opposite of lend. [OE. borwen, AS. borgian, fr. borg, borh, pledge; akin to D. borg, G. borg; prob. fr. root of AS. beorgan to protect. Borough.]
- overplus n.
- That which remains after a supply, or beyond a quantity proposed; surplus. [Over + L. plus more. See Plus, and cf. Surplus.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
"Scentless Flow'Rs I Bring Thee" 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, "Scentless Flow'Rs I Bring Thee", in The Poems of William Watson (1892–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13179, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/watson-poems/scentless-flow-rs-i-bring-thee.html, id L11255.
Form and metre
"Scentless Flow'Rs I Bring Thee" is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 AABB yetA · setA · growsB · roseB
- 2 AABB couldA · neighbourhoodA · thusB · overplusB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Scentless flow'rs I bring thee--yet | 7 | /˘····· |
| In thy bosom be they set; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| In thy bosom each one grows | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Fragrant beyond any rose. | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Sweet enough were she who could, | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| In thy heart's sweet neighbourhood, | 7 | ······· |
| Some redundant sweetness thus | 7 | ·˘/˘/˘· |
| Borrow from that overplus. | 7 | /···/˘˘ |
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.