Tempora
Io! Io! Tamuz!The Dryad stands in my court-yardWith plaintive, querulous crying.(Tamuz. Io! Tamuz!)Oh, no, she is not crying: “Tamuz.”She says, “May my poems be printed this week?The god Pan is afraid to ask you,May my poems be printed this week?”
Words in this poem
- dryad n.
- A wood nymph; a nymph whose life was bound up with that of her tree. [L. dryas, pl. dryades, Gr. Tree.]
- querulous a.
- Given to quarreling; quarrelsome. land. [L. querulus and querulosus, fr. queri to complain. Cf. Cry, v., Quarrel a brawl, Quarrelous.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Tempora 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, Tempora, in Lustra (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #55564, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pound-lustra/tempora.html, id L01289.
Form and metre
Tempora is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 82% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% 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.
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 A--AAB-B tamuzA · yard · crying · tamuzA · tamuzA · weekB · you · weekB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Io! Io! Tamuz! | 6 | /˘/˘·· |
| The Dryad stands in my court-yard | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| With plaintive, querulous crying. | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘/˘ |
| (Tamuz. Io! Tamuz!) | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Oh, no, she is not crying: “Tamuz.” | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| She says, “May my poems be printed this week? | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| The god Pan is afraid to ask you, | 9 | ····˘/··· |
| May my poems be printed this week?” | 9 | ··/˘·/˘·· |
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.