A questi dì prima io la vidi. Uscia
These were the days when first I saw her growingLike bud to flower in the time of spring,Her figure such a sweet and lovely thingAs if one heard love's richest music flowing.
The bashful blushes on her cheeks were showingWhat native grace her gentle speech could bring;As on smooth seas the stars their radiance fling,So in her laughing eyes the soul was glowing.
'T was such I saw her. Now with mad desireAs in a world of stifling air aloneI wander, weak and worn with my inquiring,
Till strength remains only her name to moanAs with each breath I feel my life expiring:O Light of all my years, where art thou flown?
Words in this poem
- bashful a.
- Abashed; daunted; dismayed. [See Bash.]
- expiring a.
- Breathing out air from the lungs; emitting fluid or volatile matter; exhaling; breathing the last breath; dying; ending; terminating.
- flown a.
- Flushed, inflated.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A questi dì prima io la vidi. Uscia is in the public domain. This text is taken from By Frank Sewall (London: Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., 1893), Project Gutenberg ebook #56711, the Frank Sewall 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: Giosuè Carducci, A questi dì prima io la vidi. Uscia, in Poems of Giosuè Carducci (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56711, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carducci-poems/a-questi-d-prima-io-la-vidi-uscia.html, id L26545.
Form and metre
A questi dì prima io la vidi. Uscia is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See 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 ABBA growingA · springB · thingB · flowingA
- 2 ABBA showingA · bringB · flingB · glowingA
- 4 A-A moanA · expiring · flownA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| These were the days when first I saw her growing | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Like bud to flower in the time of spring, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Her figure such a sweet and lovely thing | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| As if one heard love's richest music flowing. | 11 | ·····/˘/˘/˘ |
| The bashful blushes on her cheeks were showing | 11 | ·/˘/˘····/˘ |
| What native grace her gentle speech could bring; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| As on smooth seas the stars their radiance fling, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| So in her laughing eyes the soul was glowing. | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| 'T was such I saw her. Now with mad desire | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| As in a world of stifling air alone | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| I wander, weak and worn with my inquiring, | 11 | ·/˘·····˘/˘ |
| Till strength remains only her name to moan | 10 | ··˘//˘···· |
| As with each breath I feel my life expiring: | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| O Light of all my years, where art thou flown? | 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.