Xenia
AndUnto thine eyes my heartSendeth old dreams of the spring-time,Yea of wood-ways my rimeFound thee and flowers in and of all streamsThat sang low burthen, and of roses,That lost their dew-bowed petals for the dreamsWe scattered o'er them passing by.
Words in this poem
- rime n.
- A rent or long aperture; a chink; a fissure; a crack. Sir T. [L. rima.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Xenia is in the public domain. This text is taken from Personae, Project Gutenberg ebook #41162; 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, Xenia, in Personae (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #41162, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pound-personae/xenia.html, id L01211.
Form and metre
Xenia is 8 lines in a single stanza. 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 62% 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.
- 1 --AAB-B- and · heart · timeA · rimeA · streamsB · roses · dreamsB · by
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And | 1 | · |
| Unto thine eyes my heart | 6 | ······ |
| Sendeth old dreams of the spring-time, | 8 | /˘······ |
| Yea of wood-ways my rime | 6 | ······ |
| Found thee and flowers in and of all streams | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| That sang low burthen, and of roses, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| That lost their dew-bowed petals for the dreams | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| We scattered o'er them passing by. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
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.