Gentildonna
She passed and left no quiver in the veins, who nowMoving among the trees, and clingingin the air she severed,Fanning the grass she walked on then, endures:
About this text
Gentildonna 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, Gentildonna, in Lustra (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #55564, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pound-lustra/gentildonna.html, id L01260.
Form and metre
Gentildonna is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 9.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| She passed and left no quiver in the veins, who now | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| Moving among the trees, and clinging | 9 | /˘·····/˘ |
| in the air she severed, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Fanning the grass she walked on then, endures: | 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.