7. Abe no Nakamaro
While gazing up into the sky,My thoughts have wandered far;Methinks I see the rising moonAbove Mount MikasaAt far-off Kasuga.
Words in this poem
- methinks v.
- It seems to me; I think. See Me. [AS. þyncan to seem, me þynceedh, me þuhte, OE. me thinketh, me thoughte; akin to G. dünken to seem, denken to think, and E. think. See Me, and Think.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
7. Abe no Nakamaro 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, 7. Abe no Nakamaro, in A Hundred Verses from Old Japan (1909), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hyakunin-isshu/7.html, id L28492.
Form and metre
7. Abe no Nakamaro 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 skyx · fara · moonx · mikasaa · kasugaa
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 |
|---|---|---|
| While gazing up into the sky, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| My thoughts have wandered far; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Methinks I see the rising moon | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| Above Mount Mikasa | 6 | ······ |
| At far-off Kasuga. | 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.