Noon-Day
Fiercely pours the noon-day sun its streamsUnexhausted, while its burning beamsDrive to shadowy grounds the birds for air,And the wearied hounds lie panting there.
Two tired girls turn o'er the hay-falls sweet,Two tired swains are binding sheaves of wheat,—Listless all,—for on a day like thisToil the heaviest of oppressions is.
Here a king may rest on sofas nappy,There the Gulya's peasant youth be happy:Golden thrones may give to princes rest,Let the swain sleep on his maiden's breast!
Words in this poem
- listless a.
- Having no desire or inclination; indifferent; heedless; spiritless. [OE. listles, lustles. See Lust.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Noon-Day 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, Noon-Day, in Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet (1866), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petofi-poems-bowring/noon-day.html, id L29793.
Form and metre
Noon-Day is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 streamsA · beamsA · airB · thereB
- 2 AABB sweetA · wheatA · thisB · isB
- 3 AABB nappyA · happyA · restB · breastB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Fiercely pours the noon-day sun its streams | 9 | /˘······· |
| Unexhausted, while its burning beams | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Drive to shadowy grounds the birds for air, | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| And the wearied hounds lie panting there. | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| Two tired girls turn o'er the hay-falls sweet, | 9 | ·/······· |
| Two tired swains are binding sheaves of wheat,— | 9 | ·/··/˘··· |
| Listless all,—for on a day like this | 9 | /˘······· |
| Toil the heaviest of oppressions is. | 9 | ··/˘·˘/˘· |
| Here a king may rest on sofas nappy, | 10 | ······/˘/˘ |
| There the Gulya's peasant youth be happy: | 10 | ··/˘/˘··/˘ |
| Golden thrones may give to princes rest, | 9 | /˘····/˘· |
| Let the swain sleep on his maiden's breast! | 9 | ······/˘· |
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.