With His Songs and Her Days to His Lady and to Love
Violets and leaves of vine,Into a frail, fair wreathWe gather and entwine:A wreath for Love to wear,Fragrant as his own breath,To crown his brow divine,All day till night is near.Violets and leaves of vineWe gather and entwine.
Violets and leaves of vineFor Love that lives a day,We gather and entwine.All day till Love is dead,Till eve falls, cold and gray,These blossoms, yours and mine,Love wears upon his head,Violets and leaves of vineWe gather and entwine.
Violets and leaves of vine,For Love when poor Love diesWe gather and entwine.This wreath that lives a dayOver his pale, cold eyes,Kissed shut by Proserpine,At set of sun we lay:Violets and leaves of vineWe gather and entwine.
Words in this poem
- entwine v. t.
- To twine, twist, or wreathe together or round. [Pref. en- + twine. Cf. Intwine.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
With His Songs and Her Days to His Lady and to Love 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, With His Songs and Her Days to His Lady and to Love, in The Poems of Ernest Dowson (1896–1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8497, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dowson-poems/with-his-songs-and-her-days-to-his-lady-and-to-love.html, id L01617.
Form and metre
With His Songs and Her Days to His Lady and to Love is 27 lines in 3 stanzas of 9 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABACBACAA. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.2 syllables. 26% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABACBACAA vineA · wreathB · entwineA · wearC · breathB · divineA · nearC · vineA · entwineA
- 2 ABACBACAA vineA · dayB · entwineA · deadC · grayB · mineA · headC · vineA · entwineA
- 3 ABACBACAA vineA · diesB · entwineA · dayC · eyesB · proserpineA · layC · vineA · entwineA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Violets and leaves of vine, | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| Into a frail, fair wreath | 6 | ······ |
| We gather and entwine: | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| A wreath for Love to wear, | 6 | ······ |
| Fragrant as his own breath, | 6 | /˘···· |
| To crown his brow divine, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| All day till night is near. | 6 | ······ |
| Violets and leaves of vine | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| We gather and entwine. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| Violets and leaves of vine | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| For Love that lives a day, | 6 | ······ |
| We gather and entwine. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| All day till Love is dead, | 6 | ······ |
| Till eve falls, cold and gray, | 6 | ······ |
| These blossoms, yours and mine, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Love wears upon his head, | 6 | ······ |
| Violets and leaves of vine | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| We gather and entwine. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| Violets and leaves of vine, | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| For Love when poor Love dies | 6 | ······ |
| We gather and entwine. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| This wreath that lives a day | 6 | ······ |
| Over his pale, cold eyes, | 6 | ······ |
| Kissed shut by Proserpine, | 6 | ······ |
| At set of sun we lay: | 6 | ······ |
| Violets and leaves of vine | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| We gather and entwine. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
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.