To Lord Tennyson (With a Volume of Verse)
Master and mage, our prince of song, whom Time,In this your autumn mellow and serene,Crowns ever with fresh laurels, nor less greenThan garlands dewy from your verdurous prime;Heir of the riches of the whole world's rhyme,Dow'r'd with the Doric grace, the Mantuan mien,With Arno's depth and Avon's golden sheen;Singer to whom the singing ages climb,Convergent;--if the youngest of the choirMay snatch a flying splendour from your nameMaking his page illustrious, and aspireFor one rich moment your regard to claim,Suffer him at your feet to lay his lyreAnd touch the skirts and fringes of your fame.
Words in this poem
- mage n.
- A magician. Spenser. [F. mage. See Magi.]
- verdurous a.
- Covered with verdure; clothed with the fresh green of vegetation; verdured; verdant; as, verdurous pastures.
- mantuan a.
- Of or pertaining to Mantua.
- sheen v. i.
- To shine; to glisten.
- convergent a.
- tending to one point of focus; tending to approach each other; converging. [Cf. F. convergent.]
- splendour n.
- Great brightness; brilliant luster; brilliancy; as, the splendor ot the sun. B. Jonson. [L. fr. splendere to shine: cf. F. splendeur.]
- aspire v. t.
- To aspire to; to long for; to try to reach; to mount to.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Lord Tennyson (With a Volume of Verse) 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, To Lord Tennyson (With a Volume of Verse), in The Poems of William Watson (1892–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13179, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/watson-poems/to-lord-tennyson-with-a-volume-of-verse.html, id L11263.
Form and metre
To Lord Tennyson (With a Volume of Verse) is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 36% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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-CDCDC timeA · sereneB · greenB · primeA · rhymeA · mienB · sheenB · climbA · choir · nameC · aspireD · claimC · lyreD · fameC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Master and mage, our prince of song, whom Time, | 10 | /˘··/····· |
| In this your autumn mellow and serene, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Crowns ever with fresh laurels, nor less green | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Than garlands dewy from your verdurous prime; | 11 | ·/˘/˘··/˘˘· |
| Heir of the riches of the whole world's rhyme, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Dow'r'd with the Doric grace, the Mantuan mien, | 11 | ···/˘··/˘˘· |
| With Arno's depth and Avon's golden sheen; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Singer to whom the singing ages climb, | 10 | /˘···/˘/˘· |
| Convergent;--if the youngest of the choir | 11 | ˘/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| May snatch a flying splendour from your name | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Making his page illustrious, and aspire | 10 | /˘··˘/˘·˘/ |
| For one rich moment your regard to claim, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Suffer him at your feet to lay his lyre | 10 | /˘········ |
| And touch the skirts and fringes of your fame. | 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.