Youth
Mood of youth,Mood of youth,Eagle-like must seek the blue,Dauntlessly its course pursue,All the mountain-heights must view.Blood of youth,Blood of youth,Steam-like puts full-speed to sea,E'en though storm and ice there be,Makes its way and romps in glee.Dream of youth,Dream of youth,Rogue-like stealing sets its snareIn the maiden's morning-prayer;All the springtime, fragrant, glowing,In its airy waves is flowing.Joy of youth,Joy of youth,Waterfall-like foams in truth,Laughing, rainbow-gifts forth flashing,Even while to death 't is dashing.Joy of youth,Dream of youth,Blood of youth,Mood of youth,Clothe the world with colors golden,Singing songs that never olden.
Words in this poem
- glee n.
- Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
- springtime n.
- The season of spring; springtide.
- olden a.
- Old; ancient; as, the olden time.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Youth 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, Youth, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/youth.html, id L29293.
Form and metre
Youth is 27 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 59% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 98%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 AABBBAACCCAADDEEAAAFFAAAAGG youthA · youthA · blueB · pursueB · viewB · youthA · youthA · seaC · beC · gleeC · youthA · youthA · snareD · prayerD · glowingE · flowingE · youthA · youthA · truthA · flashingF · dashingF · youthA · youthA · youthA · youthA · goldenG · oldenG
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Mood of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Mood of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Eagle-like must seek the blue, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Dauntlessly its course pursue, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| All the mountain-heights must view. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Blood of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Blood of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Steam-like puts full-speed to sea, | 7 | ······· |
| E'en though storm and ice there be, | 7 | ······· |
| Makes its way and romps in glee. | 7 | ······· |
| Dream of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Dream of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Rogue-like stealing sets its snare | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| In the maiden's morning-prayer; | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| All the springtime, fragrant, glowing, | 8 | ··/·/˘/˘ |
| In its airy waves is flowing. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Joy of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Joy of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Waterfall-like foams in truth, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Laughing, rainbow-gifts forth flashing, | 8 | /˘/···/˘ |
| Even while to death 't is dashing. | 9 | /˘·····/˘ |
| Joy of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Dream of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Blood of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Mood of youth, | 3 | ··· |
| Clothe the world with colors golden, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Singing songs that never olden. | 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.