Red Carnations
One time in Arcadie's fair bowersThere met a bright immortal band,To choose their emblems from the flowersThat made an Eden of that land.
Sweet Constancy, with eyes of hope,Strayed down the garden path aloneAnd gathered sprays of heliotrope,To place in clusters at her zone.
True Friendship plucked the ivy green,Forever fresh, forever fair.Inconstancy with flippant mienThe fading primrose chose to wear.
One moment Love the rose paused by;But Beauty picked it for her hair.Love paced the garden with a sighHe found no fitting emblem there.
Then suddenly he saw a flame,A conflagration turned to bloom;It even put the rose to shame,Both in its beauty and perfume.
He watched it, and it did not fade;He plucked it, and it brighter grew.In cold or heat, all undismayed,It kept its fragrance and its hue.
"Here deathless love and passion sleep,"He cried, "embodied in this flower.This is the emblem I will keep."Love wore carnations from that hour.
Words in this poem
- eden n.
- The garden where Adam and Eve first dwelt; hence, a delightful region or residence. [Heb. eden delight, pleasure; also, a place of pleasure, Eden.]
- flippant a.
- Of smooth, fluent, and rapid speech; speaking with ease and rapidity; having a voluble tongue; talkative. [Prov. E. flip to move nimbly; cf. W. llipa soft, limber, pliant, or Icel. fleipa to babble, prattle. Cf. Flip, Fillip, Flap, Flipper.]
- fading n.
- An Irish dance; also, the burden of a song.
- conflagration n.
- A fire extending to many objects, or over a large space; a general burning.
- deathless a.
- Not subject to death, destruction, or extinction; immortal; undying; imperishable; as, deathless beings; deathless fame.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Red Carnations 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, Red Carnations, in Poems of Passion (1883), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16776, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wilcox-passion/red-carnations.html, id L22194.
Form and metre
Red Carnations is 28 lines in 7 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABAB bowersA · bandB · flowersA · landB
- 2 ABAB hopeA · aloneB · heliotropeA · zoneB
- 3 ABAB greenA · fairB · mienA · wearB
- 4 ABAB byA · hairB · sighA · thereB
- 5 ABAB flameA · bloomB · shameA · perfumeB
- 6 ABAB fadeA · grewB · undismayedA · hueB
- 7 ABAB sleepA · flowerB · keepA · hourB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| One time in Arcadie's fair bowers | 8 | ······/˘ |
| There met a bright immortal band, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| To choose their emblems from the flowers | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| That made an Eden of that land. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Sweet Constancy, with eyes of hope, | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| Strayed down the garden path alone | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| And gathered sprays of heliotrope, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| To place in clusters at her zone. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| True Friendship plucked the ivy green, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Forever fresh, forever fair. | 8 | ˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| Inconstancy with flippant mien | 8 | ˘/˘˘·/˘· |
| The fading primrose chose to wear. | 8 | ·/˘/···· |
| One moment Love the rose paused by; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| But Beauty picked it for her hair. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Love paced the garden with a sigh | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| He found no fitting emblem there. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Then suddenly he saw a flame, | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| A conflagration turned to bloom; | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| It even put the rose to shame, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Both in its beauty and perfume. | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| He watched it, and it did not fade; | 8 | ········ |
| He plucked it, and it brighter grew. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In cold or heat, all undismayed, | 8 | ·······˘ |
| It kept its fragrance and its hue. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| "Here deathless love and passion sleep," | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| He cried, "embodied in this flower. | 9 | ··˘/˘··/˘ |
| This is the emblem I will keep." | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Love wore carnations from that hour. | 9 | ··˘/˘··/˘ |
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.