To Flora
$E$ mpresse of flowers, tell where away$L$ ies your sweet Court this merry May,$I$ n Greenewich Garden allies?$S$ ince there the heauenly powers do play$A$ nd haunt no other vallies.
$B$ eautie, vertue, maiestie,$E$ loquent Muses, three times three,$T$ he new fresh Houres and Graces,$H$ aue pleasure in this place to be,$A$ boue all other places.
$R$ oses and lillies did them draw,$E$ re they diuine Astræa saw;$G$ ay flowers they sought for pleasure:$I$ nstead of gathering crownes of flowers,$N$ ow gather they Astræa's dowers,$A$ nd beare to heauen that treasure,
About this text
To Flora is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies. Volume 1 of 2., Project Gutenberg ebook #44977; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Davies, To Flora, in The Complete Poems, Volume I (1596–1599), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #44977, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/davies-poems/to-flora.html, id L08803.
Form and metre
To Flora is 16 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%). 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 AA-A- awayA · mayA · allies · playA · vallies
- 2 -ABAB maiestie · threeA · gracesB · beA · placesB
- 3 AAB--B drawA · sawA · pleasureB · flowers · dowers · treasureB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| $E$ mpresse of flowers, tell where away | 9 | ···/˘··˘/ |
| $L$ ies your sweet Court this merry May, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| $I$ n Greenewich Garden allies? | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| $S$ ince there the heauenly powers do play | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| $A$ nd haunt no other vallies. | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| $B$ eautie, vertue, maiestie, | 6 | ······ |
| $E$ loquent Muses, three times three, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| $T$ he new fresh Houres and Graces, | 9 | ····/˘·/˘ |
| $H$ aue pleasure in this place to be, | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| $A$ boue all other places. | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| $R$ oses and lillies did them draw, | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| $E$ re they diuine Astræa saw; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| $G$ ay flowers they sought for pleasure: | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| $I$ nstead of gathering crownes of flowers, | 10 | ···/˘˘··/˘ |
| $N$ ow gather they Astræa's dowers, | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| $A$ nd beare to heauen that treasure, | 8 | ······/˘ |
Notes from the edition 2
A. B. Grosart's notes to the Complete Poems of Sir John Davies (Project Gutenberg #44977).
- Stanza 1, line 2 Thomas Davies, as before, drops 'merry.'
- Stanza 1, line 3 = alleys. G.
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.