The Spring
Cydonian spring with her attendant train,Maelids and water-girls,Stepping beneath a boisterous wind from Thrace,Throughout this sylvan placeSpreads the bright tips,And every vine-stock isClad in new brilliancies.And wild desireFalls like black lightning.O bewildered heart,Though every branch have back what last year lost,She, who moved here amid the cyclamen,Moves only now a clinging tenuous ghost.
Words in this poem
- boisterous a.
- Rough or rude; unbending; unyielding; strong; powerful. [OE. boistous; of uncertain origin; cf. W. bwyst wild, savage, wildness, ferocity, bwystus ferocious.]
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- tenuous a.
- Thin; slender; small; minute. [L. tenuis thin. See Thin, and cf. Tenuis.]
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Spring 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, The Spring, in Lustra (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #55564, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pound-lustra/the-spring.html, id L01252.
Form and metre
The Spring is 13 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 23% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 --AA--------- train · girls · thraceA · placeA · tips · is · brilliancies · desire · lightning · heart · lost · cyclamen · ghost
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Cydonian spring with her attendant train, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Maelids and water-girls, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Stepping beneath a boisterous wind from Thrace, | 11 | /˘···/˘˘··· |
| Throughout this sylvan place | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Spreads the bright tips, | 4 | ···· |
| And every vine-stock is | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
| Clad in new brilliancies. | 5 | ····· |
| And wild desire | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
| Falls like black lightning. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| O bewildered heart, | 5 | ·˘/˘· |
| Though every branch have back what last year lost, | 11 | ·/˘˘······· |
| She, who moved here amid the cyclamen, | 10 | ····˘/·/˘˘ |
| Moves only now a clinging tenuous ghost. | 11 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘· |
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.