Youth
I am not sure if I knew the truthWhat his case or crime might be,I only know that he pleaded Youth,A beautiful, golden plea!
Youth, with its sunlit, passionate eyes,Its roseate velvet skin--A plea to cancel a thousand lies,Or a thousand nights of sin.
The men who judged him were old and greyTheir eyes and their senses dim,He brought the light of a warm Spring dayTo the Court-house bare and grim.
Could he plead guilty in a lovelier way?His judges acquitted him.
Words in this poem
- sunlit a.
- Lighted by the sun.
- roseate a.
- Full of roses; rosy; as, roseate bowers. [Cf. L. roseus, rosatus, prepared from roses. See Roseal, Rose.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Youth is in the public domain. This text is taken from India's Love Lyrics, Project Gutenberg ebook #8197; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Laurence Hope, Youth, in India's Love Lyrics (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8197, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hope-india/youth.html, id L22585.
Form and metre
Youth is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%).
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 truthA · beB · youthA · pleaB
- 2 ABAB eyesA · skinB · liesA · sinB
- 3 ABAB greyA · dimB · dayA · grimB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I am not sure if I knew the truth | 9 | ········· |
| What his case or crime might be, | 7 | ······· |
| I only know that he pleaded Youth, | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| A beautiful, golden plea! | 7 | ·/˘˘/˘· |
| Youth, with its sunlit, passionate eyes, | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| Its roseate velvet skin-- | 7 | ·/˘˘/˘· |
| A plea to cancel a thousand lies, | 9 | ···/˘·/˘· |
| Or a thousand nights of sin. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| The men who judged him were old and grey | 9 | ········· |
| Their eyes and their senses dim, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| He brought the light of a warm Spring day | 9 | ········· |
| To the Court-house bare and grim. | 7 | ······· |
| Could he plead guilty in a lovelier way? | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| His judges acquitted him. | 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.