To the City of Nan-king
Thou that hast seen six kingdoms pass away,Accept my song and these three cups I drain!There may be fairer gardens light the plain;Thine are the dim blue hills more fair than they.
Here Kings of Wu were crowned and overthrown,Where peaceful grass along the ruin wins;Here -- was it yesterday? -- the royal TsinsCalled down the dreams of sunset into stone.
One end awaits for all that mortal be;Pride and despair shall find a common grave:The Yang-tse-kiang renders wave and waveTo mingle with the abysms of the sea.
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- yang n.
- The cry of the wild goose; a honk. [Of imitative origin.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To the City of Nan-king is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Lute of Jade, Project Gutenberg ebook #390, the L. Cranmer-Byng 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, To the City of Nan-king, in A Lute of Jade (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lute-of-jade/to-the-city-of-nan-king.html, id L15576.
Form and metre
To the City of Nan-king is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABBA awayA · drainB · plainB · theyA
- 2 ABBA overthrownA · winsB · tsinsB · stoneA
- 3 ABBA beA · graveB · waveB · seaA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thou that hast seen six kingdoms pass away, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Accept my song and these three cups I drain! | 10 | ˘/········ |
| There may be fairer gardens light the plain; | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Thine are the dim blue hills more fair than they. | 10 | ·········· |
| Here Kings of Wu were crowned and overthrown, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Where peaceful grass along the ruin wins; | 10 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘· |
| Here -- was it yesterday? -- the royal Tsins | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Called down the dreams of sunset into stone. | 10 | ·····/···· |
| One end awaits for all that mortal be; | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Pride and despair shall find a common grave: | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| The Yang-tse-kiang renders wave and wave | 10 | ···˘//˘··· |
| To mingle with the abysms of the sea. | 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.