Charles d'Orléans: Spring
THE year has changed his mantle coldOf wind, of rain, of bitter air;And he goes clad in cloth of gold,Of laughing suns and season fair;No bird or beast of wood or woldBut doth with cry or song declareThe year lays down his mantle cold.All founts, all rivers, seaward rolled,The pleasant summer livery wear,With silver studs on broidered vair;The world puts off its raiment old,The year lays down his mantle cold.
Words in this poem
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- wold n.
- A wood; a forest. [OE. wold, wald, AS. weald, wald, a wood, forest; akin to OFries. & OS. wald, D. woud, G. wald, Icel. völlr, a field, and probably to Gr. va a garden, inclosure.]
- seaward a.
- Directed or situated toward the sea. Donne.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Charles d'Orléans: Spring 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, Charles d'Orléans: Spring, in Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #795, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lang-old-france/spring.html, id L26885.
Form and metre
Charles d'Orléans: Spring is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABABABAABBAA coldA · airB · goldA · fairB · woldA · declareB · coldA · rolledA · wearB · vairB · oldA · coldA
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| THE year has changed his mantle cold | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Of wind, of rain, of bitter air; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And he goes clad in cloth of gold, | 8 | ········ |
| Of laughing suns and season fair; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| No bird or beast of wood or wold | 8 | ········ |
| But doth with cry or song declare | 8 | ······˘/ |
| The year lays down his mantle cold. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| All founts, all rivers, seaward rolled, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The pleasant summer livery wear, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| With silver studs on broidered vair; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The world puts off its raiment old, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The year lays down his mantle cold. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
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.