Translation of a South American Ode
IN all my Enna’s beauties blest,Amidst profusion still I pine;For though she gives me up her breast,Its panting tenant is not mine.
Words in this poem
- amidst prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Translation of a South American Ode is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith, Project Gutenberg ebook #3545; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Oliver Goldsmith, Translation of a South American Ode, in Poems (1764–1774), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3545, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/goldsmith-poems/translation-of-a-south-american-ode.html, id L00432.
Form and metre
Translation of a South American Ode is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables.
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 blestA · pineB · breastA · mineB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| IN all my Enna’s beauties blest, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Amidst profusion still I pine; | 8 | ˘/˘/˘··· |
| For though she gives me up her breast, | 8 | ········ |
| Its panting tenant is not mine. | 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.