Du Bellay: A Vow to Heavenly Venus
WE that with like hearts love, we lovers twain,New wedded in the village by thy fane,Lady of all chaste love, to thee it isWe bring these amaranths, these white lilies,A sign, and sacrifice; may Love, we pray,Like amaranthine flowers, feel no decay;Like these cool lilies may our loves remain,Perfect and pure, and know not any stain;And be our hearts, from this thy holy hour,Bound each to each, like flower to wedded flower.
Words in this poem
- twain a.
- Two;- nearly obsolete in common discourse, but used in poetry and burlesque. [OE. twein, tweien, tweyne, AS. twegen, masc. See Two.]
- wedded a.
- Joined in wedlock; married.
- fane n.
- A temple; a place consecrated to religion; a church. [L. fanum a place dedicated to some deity, a sanctuary, fr. fari to speak. See Fame.]
- amaranthine a.
- Of or pertaining to amaranth.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Du Bellay: A Vow to Heavenly Venus is in the public domain. This text is taken from Ballads and Lyrics of Old France, with Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #795, the Andrew Lang 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, Du Bellay: A Vow to Heavenly Venus, in Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #795, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lang-old-france/a-vow-to-heavenly-venus.html, id L26891.
Form and metre
Du Bellay: A Vow to Heavenly Venus is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCCAADD twainA · faneA · isB · liliesB · prayC · decayC · remainA · stainA · hourD · flowerD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| WE that with like hearts love, we lovers twain, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| New wedded in the village by thy fane, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Lady of all chaste love, to thee it is | 10 | /˘········ |
| We bring these amaranths, these white lilies, | 10 | ···/˘···/˘ |
| A sign, and sacrifice; may Love, we pray, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Like amaranthine flowers, feel no decay; | 10 | ·····/··˘/ |
| Like these cool lilies may our loves remain, | 10 | ···/˘·/·˘/ |
| Perfect and pure, and know not any stain; | 10 | ˘/·····/˘· |
| And be our hearts, from this thy holy hour, | 11 | ··/····/˘/˘ |
| Bound each to each, like flower to wedded flower. | 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.