Ruit Hora
O green and silent solitudes far from the rumours of men!Hither come to meet us true friends divine, O Lidia,Wine and love.
O tell me why the sea far under the flaming HesperusSends such mysterious moanings; and what songs are these, O Lidia,The pines are chanting?
See with what longing the hills stretch their arms to the setting sun!The shadow lengthens and holds them; they seem to be askingA last kiss, O Lidia!
Words in this poem
- hesperus n.
- Venus when she is the evening star; Hesper. [L. See Hesper.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Ruit Hora 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, Ruit Hora, in Poems of Giosuè Carducci (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56711, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carducci-poems/ruit-hora.html, id L26513.
Form and metre
Ruit Hora is 9 lines in 3 stanzas of 3 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O green and silent solitudes far from the rumours of men! | 15 | ···/˘/˘·····˘·· |
| Hither come to meet us true friends divine, O Lidia, | 13 | /˘······˘/··· |
| Wine and love. | 3 | ··· |
| O tell me why the sea far under the flaming Hesperus | 15 | ··········/˘/˘˘ |
| Sends such mysterious moanings; and what songs are these, O Lidia, | 15 | ··˘/˘/˘········ |
| The pines are chanting? | 5 | ···/˘ |
| See with what longing the hills stretch their arms to the setting sun! | 15 | ···/˘·······/˘· |
| The shadow lengthens and holds them; they seem to be asking | 14 | ·/·/˘·······/˘ |
| A last kiss, O Lidia! | 6 | ······ |
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.