Taking Leave of a Friend
Blue mountains to the north of the walls,White river winding about them;Here we must make separationAnd go out through a thousand miles of dead grass.Mind like a floating wide cloud.Sunset like the parting of old acquaintancesWho bow over their clasped hands at a distance.Our horses neigh to each otheras we are departing.
“Sanso, King of Shoku, built roads.”
They say the roads of Sanso are steep,Sheer as the mountains.The walls rise in a man’s face,Clouds grow out of the hillat his horse’s bridle.Sweet trees are on the paved way of the Shin,Their trunks burst through the paving,And freshets are bursting their icein the midst of Shoku, a proud city.
Men’s fates are already set,There is no need of asking diviners.
About this text
Taking Leave of a Friend 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, Taking Leave of a Friend, in Lustra (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #55564, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pound-lustra/taking-leave-of-a-friend.html, id L01317.
Form and metre
Taking Leave of a Friend is 21 lines in 4 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.3 syllables. 9 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 24% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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.
- 3 ---AA---- steep · mountains · face · hillA · bridleA · shin · paving · ice · city
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Blue mountains to the north of the walls, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| White river winding about them; | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Here we must make separation | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| And go out through a thousand miles of dead grass. | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| Mind like a floating wide cloud. | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Sunset like the parting of old acquaintances | 12 | /···/˘··˘/˘˘ |
| Who bow over their clasped hands at a distance. | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Our horses neigh to each other | 9 | /˘/˘···/˘ |
| as we are departing. | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
| “Sanso, King of Shoku, built roads.” | 8 | /˘······ |
| They say the roads of Sanso are steep, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| Sheer as the mountains. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| The walls rise in a man’s face, | 7 | ······· |
| Clouds grow out of the hill | 6 | ······ |
| at his horse’s bridle. | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Sweet trees are on the paved way of the Shin, | 10 | ·········· |
| Their trunks burst through the paving, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And freshets are bursting their ice | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| in the midst of Shoku, a proud city. | 10 | ········/˘ |
| Men’s fates are already set, | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| There is no need of asking diviners. | 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.