Ancora
Good God! They say you are risqué,O canzonetti!We who went out into the four A.M. of the worldComposing our albas,We who shook off our dew with the rabbits,We who have seen even Artemis a-binding her sandals,Have we ever heard the like?O mountains of Hellas!!
Gather about me, O Muses!When we sat upon the granite brink in HeliconClothed in the tattered sunlight,O Muses with delicate shins,O Muses with delectable knee-joints,When we splashed and were splashed withThe lucid Castalian spray,Had we ever such an epithet cast upon us!!
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- shook v. t.
- To pack, as staves, in a shook.
- brink n.
- The edge, margin, or border of a steep place, as of a precipice; a bank or edge, as of a river or pit; a verge; a border; as, the brink of a chasm. Also Fig. [Dan. brink edge, verge; akin to Sw. brink declivity, hill, Icel. brekka; cf. LG. brink a grassy hill, W. bryn hill, bryncyn hillock.]
- helicon n.
- A mountain in Boeotia, in Greece, supposed by the Greeks to be the residence of Apollo and the Muses.
- delectable a.
- Highly pleasing; delightful. [OF. delitable, OF. delitable, F. délectable, fr. L. delectabilis, fr. delectare to delight. See Delight.]
- castalian a.
- Of or pertaining to Castalia, a mythical fountain of inspiration on Mt. Parnassus sacred to the Muses. [L. Castalius]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Ancora is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lustra of Ezra Pound, Project Gutenberg ebook #55564; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ezra Pound, Ancora, in Lustra (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #55564, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pound-lustra/ancora.html, id L01280.
Form and metre
Ancora is 16 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.1 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 19% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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.
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Good God! They say you are risqué, | 8 | ········ |
| O canzonetti! | 5 | ····· |
| We who went out into the four A.M. of the world | 13 | ············· |
| Composing our albas, | 7 | ˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| We who shook off our dew with the rabbits, | 11 | ····/˘···/˘ |
| We who have seen even Artemis a-binding her sandals, | 15 | ····/˘····/˘·/˘ |
| Have we ever heard the like? | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| O mountains of Hellas!! | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Gather about me, O Muses! | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| When we sat upon the granite brink in Helicon | 13 | ······/˘··/˘· |
| Clothed in the tattered sunlight, | 7 | ···/˘/· |
| O Muses with delicate shins, | 8 | ·/˘·/˘˘· |
| O Muses with delectable knee-joints, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘˘·· |
| When we splashed and were splashed with | 7 | ······· |
| The lucid Castalian spray, | 8 | ·/˘˘/˘˘· |
| Had we ever such an epithet cast upon us!! | 13 | ··/˘··/˘····· |
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.