Cypress Leaves III
How the ancient earthThe young sun, her brother,Welcomes,—in their mirth,Kissing one another.
See! the sunny beamsTemple, steeple, shrine,Mountains, valleys, streams,Kissing as they shine.
Calmly wakes the sun,Calmly wends him home—Has the careless oneSeen Etelka's tomb?
Words in this poem
- sunny a.
- Of or pertaining to the sun; proceeding from, or resembling the sun; hence, shining; bright; brilliant; radiant.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cypress Leaves III is in the public domain. This text is taken from Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet, by Sir John Bowring (London: Trübner & Co., 1866), Internet Archive, the John Bowring 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: Sándor Petőfi, Cypress Leaves III, in Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet (1866), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petofi-poems-bowring/cypress-leaves-iii.html, id L29805.
Form and metre
Cypress Leaves III is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABAB earthA · brotherB · mirthA · anotherB
- 2 ABAB beamsA · shrineB · streamsA · shineB
- 3 ABAB sunA · homeB · oneA · tombB
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| How the ancient earth | 5 | ··/˘· |
| The young sun, her brother, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Welcomes,—in their mirth, | 5 | /˘··· |
| Kissing one another. | 6 | /˘·˘/˘ |
| See! the sunny beams | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Temple, steeple, shrine, | 5 | /˘/˘· |
| Mountains, valleys, streams, | 5 | /˘/˘· |
| Kissing as they shine. | 5 | /˘··· |
| Calmly wakes the sun, | 5 | /˘··· |
| Calmly wends him home— | 5 | /˘··· |
| Has the careless one | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Seen Etelka's tomb? | 5 | ····· |
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.