Compiuta Donzella: What time the world doth put forth leaves and flowers
What time the world doth put forth leaves and flowersTo all true lovers fuller joy belongs,They go awandering then through garden bowersWhere little birds are warbling their sweet songs :Then care-free folk their time in love employ,And every lad doth serve with eagerness,And every lassie doth abide in joy,But tears have I in plenty and distress,Because my father doeth me great ill,And causeth me full often bitterest rue,Since he would marry me against my willAnd I have neither heart nor mind thereto.Thus in great misery I pass the hours,Nor am I comforted by leaves and flowers.
Words in this poem
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- lassie n.
- A young girl; a lass.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Compiuta Donzella: What time the world doth put forth leaves and flowers is in the public domain. This text is taken from An Anthology of Italian Poems, 13th to 19th Century, Selected & Translated by Lorna de' Lucchi, Internet Archive, the Lorna de' Lucchi 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, Compiuta Donzella: What time the world doth put forth leaves and flowers, in An Anthology of Italian Poems (Selections), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/italian-anthology-de-lucchi/compiuta-donzella-what-time-the-world-doth-put-forth-leaves-and-flower.html, id L26480.
Form and metre
Compiuta Donzella: What time the world doth put forth leaves and flowers is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABABCDCDE-E-AA flowersA · belongsB · bowersA · songsB · employC · eagernessD · joyC · distressD · illE · rue · willE · thereto · hoursA · flowersA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| What time the world doth put forth leaves and flowers | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| To all true lovers fuller joy belongs, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| They go awandering then through garden bowers | 11 | ········/˘/ |
| Where little birds are warbling their sweet songs : | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Then care-free folk their time in love employ, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| And every lad doth serve with eagerness, | 11 | ·/˘˘····/˘˘ |
| And every lassie doth abide in joy, | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/·· |
| But tears have I in plenty and distress, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Because my father doeth me great ill, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| And causeth me full often bitterest rue, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Since he would marry me against my will | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And I have neither heart nor mind thereto. | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Thus in great misery I pass the hours, | 11 | ···/˘˘···/˘ |
| Nor am I comforted by leaves and flowers. | 11 | ···/˘˘···/˘ |
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.