Creation
The impulse of all love is to create.God was so full of love, in his embraceHe clasped the empty nothingness of space,And low! the solar system! High in stateThe mighty sun sat, so supreme and greatWith this same essence, one smile of its faceBrought myriad forms of life forth; race on race,From insects up to men.
Through love, not hate,All that is grand in nature or in artSprang into being. He who would build sublimeAnd lasting works, to stand the test of time,Must inspiration draw from his full heart.And he who loveth widely, well, and much,The secret holds of the true master touch.
Words in this poem
- myriad n.
- The number of ten thousand; ten thousand persons or things. [Gr. myriade.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Creation 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, Creation, in Poems of Passion (1883), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16776, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wilcox-passion/creation.html, id L22193.
Form and metre
Creation is 15 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 53% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 ABBAABB- createA · embraceB · spaceB · stateA · greatA · faceB · raceB · men
- 2 -ABBACC hate · artA · sublimeB · timeB · heartA · muchC · touchC
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 impulse of all love is to create. | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| God was so full of love, in his embrace | 10 | ········˘/ |
| He clasped the empty nothingness of space, | 10 | ···/˘/˘˘·· |
| And low! the solar system! High in state | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The mighty sun sat, so supreme and great | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| With this same essence, one smile of its face | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Brought myriad forms of life forth; race on race, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| From insects up to men. | 6 | ·/···· |
| Through love, not hate, | 4 | ···· |
| All that is grand in nature or in art | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Sprang into being. He who would build sublime | 10 | ···/····˘/ |
| And lasting works, to stand the test of time, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Must inspiration draw from his full heart. | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| And he who loveth widely, well, and much, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The secret holds of the true master touch. | 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.