The Woods
Round the dark-green circle of the woods I wander,Looking on the flowers the high oaks blooming under;Birds among the branches, bees among the flowers,Music all around us bursting from the bowers;Flowers and trees are still, yet seem alive and wary,Listening to the hymns of nature's sanctuary.Is all sleeping here? the forest, flowers, and furrows,Let me stand and muse forgetful of my sorrows.
Careless, senseless rolls the river on the pebbles—What has thought to do with these impetuous ripples!"See! the stream outruns the flying cloudy shadows,As they darkly pass over the mirroring meadows;O they image well my fancy's foolish doing,When youth's giddy dreams of happiness pursuing;Memory fades—'tis well it fades—there's no regretting,Wherefore came I here? "Twas only for forgetting.
Words in this poem
- forgetful a.
- Apt to forget; easily losing remembrance; as, a forgetful man should use helps to strengthen his memory.
- wherefore adv.
- For which reason; so; -- used relatively. [Where + for.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Woods 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, The Woods, in Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet (1866), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petofi-poems-bowring/the-woods.html, id L29818.
Form and metre
The Woods is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 62% of the lines. The metre is trochaic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic hexameter.
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-- wander · under · flowersA · bowersA · waryB · sanctuaryB · furrows · sorrows
- 2 --AABBCC pebbles · ripples · shadowsA · meadowsA · doingB · pursuingB · regrettingC · forgettingC
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Round the dark-green circle of the woods I wander, | 12 | ····/˘····/˘ |
| Looking on the flowers the high oaks blooming under; | 12 | /˘··/···/˘·· |
| Birds among the branches, bees among the flowers, | 12 | ····/˘····/˘ |
| Music all around us bursting from the bowers; | 12 | /˘····/˘··/˘ |
| Flowers and trees are still, yet seem alive and wary, | 13 | /˘······˘/·/˘ |
| Listening to the hymns of nature's sanctuary. | 13 | /˘˘····/˘/˘·˘ |
| Is all sleeping here? the forest, flowers, and furrows, | 13 | ··/˘··/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Let me stand and muse forgetful of my sorrows. | 12 | ·····˘/˘··/˘ |
| Careless, senseless rolls the river on the pebbles— | 12 | /˘/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| What has thought to do with these impetuous ripples! | 12 | ·······˘/˘/˘ |
| "See! the stream outruns the flying cloudy shadows, | 12 | ···˘/·/˘/˘/· |
| As they darkly pass over the mirroring meadows; | 12 | ··/˘···/˘˘/· |
| O they image well my fancy's foolish doing, | 12 | ··/˘··/˘/˘/˘ |
| When youth's giddy dreams of happiness pursuing; | 12 | ··/˘··/˘˘˘/˘ |
| Memory fades—'tis well it fades—there's no regretting, | 13 | /˘˘·······˘/˘ |
| Wherefore came I here? "Twas only for forgetting. | 12 | /˘····/˘·˘/˘ |
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.