For a Charity Fair
Some poor man in needTo bless and to feed,I bring at its worth,This day of my birth,A book,--from my youth I must own.But Who in His powerGave bud and gave flower,To bread can transformIn want's winter-stormEach leaf that my Springtime has grown.
Words in this poem
- springtime n.
- The season of spring; springtide.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
For a Charity Fair is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Songs, Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, the Arthur Hubbell Palmer translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, For a Charity Fair, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/for-a-charity-fair.html, id L29302.
Form and metre
For a Charity Fair is 10 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes AABBCDDEEC. The metre is anapaestic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in anapaestic dimeter.
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 AABBCDDEEC needA · feedA · worthB · birthB · ownC · powerD · flowerD · transformE · stormE · grownC
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 anapaestic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Some poor man in need | 5 | ····· |
| To bless and to feed, | 5 | ····· |
| I bring at its worth, | 5 | ····· |
| This day of my birth, | 5 | ····· |
| A book,--from my youth I must own. | 8 | ········ |
| But Who in His power | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Gave bud and gave flower, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| To bread can transform | 5 | ···˘/ |
| In want's winter-storm | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Each leaf that my Springtime has grown. | 8 | ····/··· |
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.