Paolo È Francesca
THE mighty blast which sweeps and girdles hellDrives us before it, whither none may tell.No pause, no goal, no time of respite,—well,We are together!
Circling forever in a dark abyss,Linked by a fate as wild as passionless,One only thing is left us,—it is this:We are together!
Words in this poem
- whither adv.
- To what place; -- used interrogatively; as, whither goest thou [OE. whider. AS. hwider; akin to E. where, who; cf. Goth. hvadre whither. See Who, and cf. Hither, Thither.]
- passionless a.
- Void of passion; without anger or emotion; not easily excited; calm.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Paolo È Francesca is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Few More Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #49518; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Susan Coolidge, Paolo È Francesca, in A Few More Verses (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49518, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coolidge-few-more-verses/paolo-francesca.html, id L23450.
Form and metre
Paolo È Francesca is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. 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 AAA- hellA · tellA · wellA · together
- 2 A-A- abyssA · passionless · thisA · together
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 mighty blast which sweeps and girdles hell | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Drives us before it, whither none may tell. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| No pause, no goal, no time of respite,—well, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| We are together! | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
| Circling forever in a dark abyss, | 10 | /˘˘/˘···˘/ |
| Linked by a fate as wild as passionless, | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| One only thing is left us,—it is this: | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| We are together! | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
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.