Anonymous: Lost for a Rose’s Sake
I LAVED my hands,By the water side;With the willow leavesMy hands I dried.
The nightingale sungOn the bough of the tree;Sing, sweet nightingale,It is well with thee.
Thou hast heart’s delight,I have sad heart’s sorrowFor a false false maidThat will wed to-morrow.
’Tis all for a rose,That I gave her not,And I would that it grewIn the garden plot.
And I would the rose-treeWere still to set,That my love MarieMight love me yet.
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Anonymous: Lost for a Rose’s Sake 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, Anonymous: Lost for a Rose’s Sake, in Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #795, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lang-old-france/lost-for-a-rose-s-sake.html, id L26920.
Form and metre
Anonymous: Lost for a Rose’s Sake is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
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 -A-A hands · sideA · leaves · driedA
- 2 -A-A sung · treeA · nightingale · theeA
- 3 -A-A delight · sorrowA · maid · morrowA
- 4 -A-A rose · notA · grew · plotA
- 5 ABAB treeA · setB · marieA · yetB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I LAVED my hands, | 5 | ··˘·· |
| By the water side; | 5 | ··/˘· |
| With the willow leaves | 5 | ··/·· |
| My hands I dried. | 4 | ···· |
| The nightingale sung | 5 | ·/˘˘· |
| On the bough of the tree; | 6 | ······ |
| Sing, sweet nightingale, | 5 | ··/˘˘ |
| It is well with thee. | 5 | ····· |
| Thou hast heart’s delight, | 5 | ···˘/ |
| I have sad heart’s sorrow | 6 | ····/˘ |
| For a false false maid | 5 | ····· |
| That will wed to-morrow. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| ’Tis all for a rose, | 5 | ····· |
| That I gave her not, | 5 | ····· |
| And I would that it grew | 6 | ······ |
| In the garden plot. | 5 | ··/˘· |
| And I would the rose-tree | 6 | ······ |
| Were still to set, | 4 | ···· |
| That my love Marie | 5 | ···˘/ |
| Might love me yet. | 4 | ···· |
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.