The Falcon
Why should my sleepy heart be taughtTo whistle mocking-bird replies?This is another bird you've caught,Soft-feathered, with a falcon's eyes.
The bird Imagination,That flies so far, that dies so soon;Her wings are colored like the sun,Her breast is colored like the moon.
Weave her a chain of silver twist,And a little hood of scarlet wool,And let her perch upon your wrist,And tell her she is beautiful.
About this text
The Falcon is in the public domain. This text is taken from Nets to Catch the Wind, Project Gutenberg ebook #6682; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Elinor Wylie, The Falcon, in Nets to Catch the Wind (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6682, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wylie-nets/the-falcon.html, id L12779.
Form and metre
The Falcon is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.9 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 taughtA · repliesB · caughtA · eyesB
- 2 AAAA imaginationA · soonA · sunA · moonA
- 3 ABAB twistA · woolB · wristA · beautifulB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Why should my sleepy heart be taught | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To whistle mocking-bird replies? | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| This is another bird you've caught, | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Soft-feathered, with a falcon's eyes. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The bird Imagination, | 7 | ··˘·˘/˘ |
| That flies so far, that dies so soon; | 8 | ········ |
| Her wings are colored like the sun, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Her breast is colored like the moon. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Weave her a chain of silver twist, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And a little hood of scarlet wool, | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| And let her perch upon your wrist, | 8 | ········ |
| And tell her she is beautiful. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
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.