Spring
Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king;Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing--Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The palm and may make country houses gay,Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay--Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,In every street these tunes our ears do greet--Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!Spring, the sweet Spring!
About this text
Spring is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Nashe, Spring, in Poems (1567–1601), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-thomas-nashe/spring.html, id L15988.
Form and metre
Spring is 13 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.5 syllables.
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 AAA- kingA · ringA · singA · woo
- 2 AAA- gayA · dayA · layA · woo
- 3 A-A-- feetA · sit · greetA · woo · spring
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, | 10 | ·········· |
| Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing-- | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo! | 10 | /········· |
| The palm and may make country houses gay, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay-- | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo! | 10 | /········· |
| The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, | 10 | ·····/˘·/· |
| Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| In every street these tunes our ears do greet-- | 10 | ·/˘···/··· |
| Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo! | 10 | /········· |
| Spring, the sweet Spring! | 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.