To a Friend
We live in vile and venal days, and know it;The world is but a coin of golden dust,And on it the impression of the poetIs but a transitory bit of rust.O no! he is the image of the king,On the world's currency—he, the truest testOf the pure ore that makes the metal ring,Of all the minting he the worthiest.Art thou a poet? ring the music loud—And of thy great inheritance be proud.
Words in this poem
- currency n.
- A continued or uninterrupted course or flow like that of a sream; as, the currency of time. Ayliffe. [Cf. LL. currentia a current, fr. L. currens, p. pr. of currere to run. See Current.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To a Friend 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, To a Friend, in Translations from Alexander Petofi, the Magyar Poet (1866), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/petofi-poems-bowring/to-a-friend.html, id L29844.
Form and metre
To a Friend is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 ABABC-CBDD itA · dustB · poetA · rustB · kingC · test · ringC · worthiestB · loudD · proudD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| We live in vile and venal days, and know it; | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| The world is but a coin of golden dust, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And on it the impression of the poet | 11 | ····˘/˘··/˘ |
| Is but a transitory bit of rust. | 10 | ···/˘·˘··· |
| O no! he is the image of the king, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| On the world's currency—he, the truest test | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Of the pure ore that makes the metal ring, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Of all the minting he the worthiest. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘˘ |
| Art thou a poet? ring the music loud— | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And of thy great inheritance be proud. | 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.