Wisdom
Love wine and beauty and the spring,While wine is red and spring is here,And through the almond blossoms ringThe dove-like voices of thy Dear.
Love wine and spring and beauty whileThe wine hath flavour and spring masksHer treachery in so soft a smileThat none may think of toil and tasks.
But when spring goes on hurrying feet,Look not thy sorrow in the eyes,And bless thy freedom from thy sweet:This is the wisdom of the wise.
Words in this poem
- flavour n.
- That quality of anything which affects the smell; odor; fragrances; as, the flavor of a rose. [OF. fleur, flaur (two syllables), odor, cf. F. fleurer to emit an odor, It. flatore a bad odor, prob. fr. L. flare to bow, whence the sense of exhalation. Cf. B]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Wisdom 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, Wisdom, in The Poems of Ernest Dowson (1896–1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8497, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dowson-poems/wisdom.html, id L01690.
Form and metre
Wisdom is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 ABAB springA · hereB · ringA · dearB
- 2 ABAB whileA · masksB · smileA · tasksB
- 3 ABAB feetA · eyesB · sweetA · wiseB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Love wine and beauty and the spring, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| While wine is red and spring is here, | 8 | ········ |
| And through the almond blossoms ring | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The dove-like voices of thy Dear. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Love wine and spring and beauty while | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The wine hath flavour and spring masks | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Her treachery in so soft a smile | 9 | ·/˘˘····· |
| That none may think of toil and tasks. | 8 | ········ |
| But when spring goes on hurrying feet, | 9 | ·····/˘˘· |
| Look not thy sorrow in the eyes, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And bless thy freedom from thy sweet: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| This is the wisdom of the wise. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
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.