Transition
A little while to walk with thee, dear child;To lean on thee my weak and weary head;Then evening comes: the winter sky is wild,The leafless trees are black, the leaves long dead.
A little while to hold thee and to stand,By harvest-fields of bending golden corn;Then the predestined silence, and thine hand,Lost in the night, long and weary and forlorn.
A little while to love thee, scarcely timeTo love thee well enough; then time to part,To fare through wintry fields alone and climbThe frozen hills, not knowing where thou art.
Short summer-time and then, my heart's desire,The winter and the darkness: one by oneThe roses fall, the pale roses expireBeneath the slow decadence of the sun.
Words in this poem
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
- decadence n.
- A falling away; decay; deterioration; declension. [LL. decadentia; L. de- + cadere to fall: cf. F. décadence. See Decay.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Transition is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems and Prose of Ernest Dowson, With a Memoir by Arthur Symons, Project Gutenberg ebook #8497; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ernest Dowson, Transition, in The Poems of Ernest Dowson (1896–1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8497, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dowson-poems/transition.html, id L01683.
Form and metre
Transition is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABAB childA · headB · wildA · deadB
- 2 ABAB standA · cornB · handA · forlornB
- 3 ABAB timeA · partB · climbA · artB
- 4 -A-A desire · oneA · expire · sunA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A little while to walk with thee, dear child; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| To lean on thee my weak and weary head; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Then evening comes: the winter sky is wild, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| The leafless trees are black, the leaves long dead. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| A little while to hold thee and to stand, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| By harvest-fields of bending golden corn; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Then the predestined silence, and thine hand, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Lost in the night, long and weary and forlorn. | 11 | ······/˘·˘/ |
| A little while to love thee, scarcely time | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| To love thee well enough; then time to part, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| To fare through wintry fields alone and climb | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| The frozen hills, not knowing where thou art. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Short summer-time and then, my heart's desire, | 11 | ·/˘·····˘/˘ |
| The winter and the darkness: one by one | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| The roses fall, the pale roses expire | 10 | ·/˘···/˘˘/ |
| Beneath the slow decadence of the sun. | 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.