Cales and Guyana
If you from spoyle of th'old worlds farthest endTo the new world your kindled valors bend,What brave examples then do prove it trewThat one things end doth still beginne a new.
Words in this poem
- beginne v. i.
- To have or commence an independent or first existence; to take rise; to commence. [AS. beginnan (akin to OS. biginnan, D. & G. beginnen, OHG. biginnan, Goth., du-ginnan, Sw. begynna, Dan. begynde); pref. be- + an assumed ginnan. sq. root31. Se]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cales and Guyana is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts, Project Gutenberg ebook #48688; 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 Donne, Cales and Guyana, in Poems (1633), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #48688, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/donne-poems/cales-and-guyana.html, id L04914.
Form and metre
Cales and Guyana is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The lines average 10.2 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 AABB endA · bendA · trewB · newB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| If you from spoyle of th'old worlds farthest end | 11 | ········/˘· |
| To the new world your kindled valors bend, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| What brave examples then do prove it trew | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| That one things end doth still beginne a new. | 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.