Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes
Not heat flames up and consumes,Not sea-waves hurry in and out,Not the air delicious and dry, the air of ripe summer, bears lightlyalong white down-balls of myriads of seeds,Waited, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may;Not these, O none of these more than the flames of me, consuming,burning for his love whom I love,O none more than I hurrying in and out;Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the same,O nor down-balls nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds,are borne through the open air,Any more than my soul is borne through the open air,Wafted in all directions O love, for friendship, for you.
About this text
Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/not-heat-flames-up-and-consumes.html, id L03871.
Form and metre
Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes is 13 lines in a single stanza. 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -A-----A--BB- consumes · outA · lightly · seeds · may · consuming · love · outA · same · clouds · airB · airB · you
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Not heat flames up and consumes, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Not sea-waves hurry in and out, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Not the air delicious and dry, the air of ripe summer, bears lightly | 17 | ···˘/˘······/˘·/˘ |
| along white down-balls of myriads of seeds, | 11 | ˘/····/˘˘·· |
| Waited, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may; | 12 | /˘/˘/˘˘····· |
| Not these, O none of these more than the flames of me, consuming, | 15 | ············˘/˘ |
| burning for his love whom I love, | 8 | /˘······ |
| O none more than I hurrying in and out; | 11 | ·····/˘˘··· |
| Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the same, | 18 | ···/˘/˘/˘·/˘······ |
| O nor down-balls nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds, | 15 | ·····˘/····˘/˘· |
| are borne through the open air, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Any more than my soul is borne through the open air, | 13 | /˘········/˘· |
| Wafted in all directions O love, for friendship, for you. | 14 | /˘··˘/˘···/˘·· |
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.