Outside the Certosa
The dead are saying: “Blessed are ye who walk along the hillsidesFlooded with the warm rays of the golden sun.
“Cool murmur the waters through flowery slopes descending.Singing are the birds to the verdure, singing the leaves to the wind.
“For you are smiling the flowers ever new on the earth;For you smile the stars, the flowers eternal of heaven.”
The dead are saying: “Gather the flowers, for they too pass away;Adore the stars, for they pass never away.
“Rotted away are the garlands that lay around our damp skulls.Roses place ye around the tresses golden and black.
“Down here it is cold. We are alone. Oh, love ye the sun!Shine, constant star of Love, on the life which passes away!”
Words in this poem
- adore v. t.
- To worship with profound reverence; to pay divine honors to; to honor as deity or as divine. [OE. aouren, anouren, adoren, OF. aorer, adorer, F. adorer, fr. L. adorare; ad + orare to speak, pray, os, oris, mouth. In OE. confused with honor, the French pr]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Outside the Certosa 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, Outside the Certosa, in Poems of Giosuè Carducci (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56711, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carducci-poems/outside-the-certosa.html, id L26517.
Form and metre
Outside the Certosa is 12 lines in 6 stanzas of 2 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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.
- 4 AA awayA · awayA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The dead are saying: “Blessed are ye who walk along the hillsides | 15 | ···/˘·····˘/·/· |
| Flooded with the warm rays of the golden sun. | 11 | /˘······/˘· |
| “Cool murmur the waters through flowery slopes descending. | 13 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘·˘/˘ |
| Singing are the birds to the verdure, singing the leaves to the wind. | 16 | /˘·····/˘/˘····· |
| “For you are smiling the flowers ever new on the earth; | 12 | ···/˘·//···· |
| For you smile the stars, the flowers eternal of heaven.” | 12 | ······/˘/˘·/ |
| The dead are saying: “Gather the flowers, for they too pass away; | 15 | ···/˘/˘·/····˘/ |
| Adore the stars, for they pass never away. | 10 | ˘/·····/˘/ |
| “Rotted away are the garlands that lay around our damp skulls. | 15 | /˘˘/··/˘····/·· |
| Roses place ye around the tresses golden and black. | 13 | /˘·····/˘/˘·· |
| “Down here it is cold. We are alone. Oh, love ye the sun! | 14 | ·······˘/····· |
| Shine, constant star of Love, on the life which passes away!” | 14 | ·/˘·······/˘˘/ |
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.