Faithfulness
There on the mountain a rose-blossom blows,Bend o'er my bosom thy forehead which glows;Whisper, O whisper sweet words in mine ear,Say that thou lovest me,—what rapture to hear!
Down on the Danube the evening sun sinks,Gilding the wavelets that dance on its brinks;As the sweet river has cradled the sun,Cradled I rest upon thee, lovely one!
I have been slandered, the slanderers declare—Let God forgive them,—I utter no prayer;Now let them listen, while prayerful I pourAll my heart's offerings on her I adore.
Words in this poem
- prayerful a.
- Given to prayer; praying much or often; devotional.
- adore v. t.
- To worship with profound reverence; to pay divine honors to; to honor as deity or as divine. [OE. aouren, anouren, adoren, OF. aorer, adorer, F. adorer, fr. L. adorare; ad + orare to speak, pray, os, oris, mouth. In OE. confused with honor, the French pr]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Faithfulness 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, Faithfulness, in Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet (1866), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petofi-poems-bowring/faithfulness.html, id L29792.
Form and metre
Faithfulness is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 AABB blowsA · glowsA · earB · hearB
- 2 AABB sinksA · brinksA · sunB · oneB
- 3 AABB declareA · prayerA · pourB · adoreB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There on the mountain a rose-blossom blows, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Bend o'er my bosom thy forehead which glows; | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
| Whisper, O whisper sweet words in mine ear, | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Say that thou lovest me,—what rapture to hear! | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Down on the Danube the evening sun sinks, | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
| Gilding the wavelets that dance on its brinks; | 11 | /˘········· |
| As the sweet river has cradled the sun, | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
| Cradled I rest upon thee, lovely one! | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| I have been slandered, the slanderers declare— | 10 | ···/˘·/˘˘/ |
| Let God forgive them,—I utter no prayer; | 10 | ··˘/··/˘·· |
| Now let them listen, while prayerful I pour | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
| All my heart's offerings on her I adore. | 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.