Odelet: After Anacreon
Poet of her face divine,Curb this over-zeal of thine!Doves wing frighted from the groundAt a step's too sudden sound,And her passion is a dove,Frighted by too bold a love.Mute as marble Hermes waitBy the blooming hawthorn-gate.Thou shalt see her wings expand,She shall flutter to thy hand.On thy forehead thou shalt knowSomething like a breath of snow,Or of pinions pure that beatIn a whirl of whiteness sweet.And the dove, grown venturesome,Shall upon thy shoulder come,And its rosy beak shall sipFrom the nectar of thy lip.
Words in this poem
- shalt
- 2d per. sing. of Shall.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Odelet: After Anacreon is in the public domain. This text is taken from Enamels and Cameos and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #29521, the Agnes Lee translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Théophile Gautier, Odelet: After Anacreon, in Enamels and Cameos and Other Poems (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #29521, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/gautier-enamels-cameos/odelet-after-anacreon.html, id L27007.
Form and metre
Odelet: After Anacreon is 18 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, 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 AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHII divineA · thineA · groundB · soundB · doveC · loveC · waitD · gateD · expandE · handE · knowF · snowF · beatG · sweetG · venturesomeH · comeH · sipI · lipI
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Poet of her face divine, | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| Curb this over-zeal of thine! | 7 | ······· |
| Doves wing frighted from the ground | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| At a step's too sudden sound, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And her passion is a dove, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Frighted by too bold a love. | 7 | /˘····· |
| Mute as marble Hermes wait | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| By the blooming hawthorn-gate. | 7 | ··/˘/·· |
| Thou shalt see her wings expand, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| She shall flutter to thy hand. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| On thy forehead thou shalt know | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Something like a breath of snow, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Or of pinions pure that beat | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| In a whirl of whiteness sweet. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And the dove, grown venturesome, | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Shall upon thy shoulder come, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And its rosy beak shall sip | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| From the nectar of thy lip. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
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.