Du Bellay: To His Friend in Elysium
SO long you wandered on the dusky plain,Where flit the shadows with their endless cry,You reach the shore where all the world goes by,You leave the strife, the slavery, the pain;But we, but we, the mortals that remainIn vain stretch hands; for Charon sullenlyDrives us afar, we may not come anighTill that last mystic obolus we gain.
But you are happy in the quiet place,And with the learned lovers of old days,And with your love, you wander ever-moreIn the dim woods, and drink forgetfulnessOf us your friends, a weary crowd that pressAbout the gate, or labour at the oar.
Words in this poem
- flit a.
- Nimble; quick; swift. See Fleet.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- charon n.
- The son of Erebus and Nox, whose office it was to ferry the souls of the dead over the Styx, a river of the infernal regions.
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Du Bellay: To His Friend in Elysium 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: To His Friend in Elysium, in Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #795, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lang-old-france/to-his-friend-in-elysium.html, id L26892.
Form and metre
Du Bellay: To His Friend in Elysium is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 ABBAA-BA plainA · cryB · byB · painA · remainA · sullenly · anighB · gainA
- 2 --ABBA place · days · moreA · forgetfulnessB · pressB · oarA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| SO long you wandered on the dusky plain, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Where flit the shadows with their endless cry, | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
| You reach the shore where all the world goes by, | 10 | ·········· |
| You leave the strife, the slavery, the pain; | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| But we, but we, the mortals that remain | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| In vain stretch hands; for Charon sullenly | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Drives us afar, we may not come anigh | 10 | ··˘/····˘/ |
| Till that last mystic obolus we gain. | 10 | ···/˘/˘˘·· |
| But you are happy in the quiet place, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And with the learned lovers of old days, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| And with your love, you wander ever-more | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| In the dim woods, and drink forgetfulness | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
| Of us your friends, a weary crowd that press | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| About the gate, or labour at the oar. | 10 | ·····/···· |
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.