62. Sei Shō-nagon
Too long to-night you've lingered here,And, though you imitateThe crowing of a cock, 'twill notUnlock the tollbar gate;Till daylight must you wait.
Words in this poem
- unlock v. t.
- To unfasten, as what is locked; as, to unlock a door or a chest. [Cf. AS. unl. See 1st Un-, and Lock, v. t.]
- daylight n.
- The light of day as opposed to the darkness of night; the light of the sun, as opposed to that of the moon or to artificial light.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
62. Sei Shō-nagon 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, 62. Sei Shō-nagon, in A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (1909), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hyakunin-isshu/62.html, id L28547.
Form and metre
62. Sei Shō-nagon 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 herex · imitatea · notx · gatea · waita
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Too long to-night you've lingered here, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And, though you imitate | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The crowing of a cock, 'twill not | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Unlock the tollbar gate; | 6 | ˘/···· |
| Till daylight must you wait. | 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.