Spirit That Form’d This Scene
Spirit that form’d this scene,These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,I know thee, savage spirit--we have communed together,Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;Wast charged against my chants they had forgotten art?To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?The lyrist’s measur’d beat, the wrought-out temple’s grace--columnand polish’d arch forgot?But thou that revelest here--spirit that form’d this scene,They have remember’d thee.
Words in this poem
- formless a.
- Shapeless; without a determinate form; wanting regularity of shape.
- wast
- The second person singular of the verb be, in the indicative mood, imperfect tense; -- now used only in solemn or poetical style.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Spirit That Form’d This Scene 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, Spirit That Form’d This Scene, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/spirit-that-form-d-this-scene.html, id L04055.
Form and metre
Spirit That Form’d This Scene is 13 lines in a single stanza. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.8 syllables. 3 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---B-B----A- sceneA · red · peaks · freshness · ownB · together · ownB · art · delicatesse · column · forgot · sceneA · thee
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Spirit that form’d this scene, | 6 | /˘···· |
| These tumbled rock-piles grim and red, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks, | 9 | ·/˘/˘˘/˘· |
| These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness, | 13 | ·/˘/˘˘···/˘/˘ |
| These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own, | 12 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘··· |
| I know thee, savage spirit--we have communed together, | 14 | ···/˘/˘··/˘˘/˘ |
| Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own; | 12 | ····˘/·/˘··· |
| Wast charged against my chants they had forgotten art? | 12 | ········˘/˘· |
| To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse? | 15 | ····˘/··˘/····· |
| The lyrist’s measur’d beat, the wrought-out temple’s grace--column | 14 | ·/˘/˘····/˘·/˘ |
| and polish’d arch forgot? | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| But thou that revelest here--spirit that form’d this scene, | 13 | ···/˘˘·/˘···· |
| They have remember’d thee. | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
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.