Attraction
The meadow and the mountain with desireGazed on each other, till a fierce unrestSurged 'neath the meadow's seemingly calm breast,And all the mountain's fissures ran with fire.
A mighty river rolled between them there.What could the mountain do but gaze and burn?What could the meadow do but look and yearn,And gem its bosom to conceal despair?
Their seething passion agitated space,Till, lo! the lands a sudden earthquake shook,The river fled, the meadow leaped and tookThe leaning mountain in a close embrace.
Words in this poem
- unrest n.
- Want of rest or repose; unquietness; sleeplessness; uneasiness; disquietude.
- seemingly adv.
- In appearance; in show; in semblance; apparently; ostensibly.
- yearn v. t.
- To pain; to grieve; to vex. [Also earn, ern; probably a corruption of OE. ermen to grieve, AS. ierman, yrman, or geierman, geyrman, fr. earm wretched, poor; akin to D. & G. arm, Icel. armr,]
- shook v. t.
- To pack, as staves, in a shook.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Attraction is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Passion, Project Gutenberg ebook #16776; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Attraction, in Poems of Passion (1883), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16776, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wilcox-passion/attraction.html, id L22174.
Form and metre
Attraction is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
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 ABBA desireA · unrestB · breastB · fireA
- 2 ABBA thereA · burnB · yearnB · despairA
- 3 ABBA spaceA · shookB · tookB · embraceA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The meadow and the mountain with desire | 11 | ·/···/˘·˘/˘ |
| Gazed on each other, till a fierce unrest | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Surged 'neath the meadow's seemingly calm breast, | 10 | ···/·/˘˘·· |
| And all the mountain's fissures ran with fire. | 11 | ···/˘/˘··/˘ |
| A mighty river rolled between them there. | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| What could the mountain do but gaze and burn? | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| What could the meadow do but look and yearn, | 10 | ···/······ |
| And gem its bosom to conceal despair? | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘/ |
| Their seething passion agitated space, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘·˘· |
| Till, lo! the lands a sudden earthquake shook, | 10 | ·····/˘/·· |
| The river fled, the meadow leaped and took | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| The leaning mountain in a close embrace. | 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.