39. Sangi Hitoshi
'Tis easier to hide the reedsUpon the moor that grow,Than try to hide the ardent loveThat sets my cheeks aglowFor somebody I know.
Words in this poem
- aglow adv.
- In a glow; glowing; as, cheeks aglow; the landscape all aglow. [Pref. a- + glow.]
- somebody n.
- A person unknown or uncertain; a person indeterminate; some person.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
39. Sangi Hitoshi is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (the Hyaku-nin-isshiu), Internet Archive, the William N. Porter 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: Various, 39. Sangi Hitoshi, in A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (1909), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hyakunin-isshu/39.html, id L28524.
Form and metre
39. Sangi Hitoshi is 5 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes xaxaa. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic trimeter.
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 xaxaa reedsx · growa · lovex · aglowa · knowa
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 'Tis easier to hide the reeds | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Upon the moor that grow, | 6 | ······ |
| Than try to hide the ardent love | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| That sets my cheeks aglow | 6 | ····˘/ |
| For somebody I know. | 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.