Hoarded Joy
I said: 'Nay, pluck not,--let the first fruit be:Even as thou sayest, it is sweet and red,But let it ripen still. The tree's bent headSees in the stream its own fecundityAnd bides the day of fulness. Shall not weAt the sun's hour that day possess the shade,And claim our fruit before its ripeness fade,And eat it from the branch and praise the tree?'
I say: 'Alas! our fruit hath wooed the sunToo long,--'tis fallen and floats adown the stream.Lo, the last clusters! Pluck them every one,And let us sup with summer; ere the gleamOf autumn set the year's pent sorrow free,And the woods wail like echoes from the sea.'
Words in this poem
- fecundity n.
- The quality or power of producing fruit; fruitfulness; especially (Biol.), the quality in female organisms of reproducing rapidly and in great numbers. [L. fecunditas: cf. F. fécondité. See Fecund.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- adown adv.
- From a higher to a lower situation; downward; down, to or on the ground. [OE. adun, adoun, adune. AS. of dune off the hill. See Down.]
- pent p. p.
- Penned or shut up; confined; -- often with up. [From Pen, v. t.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hoarded Joy is in the public domain. This text is taken from The House of Life, Project Gutenberg ebook #3692; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Hoarded Joy, in The House of Life (1881), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3692, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-house-of-life/hoarded-joy.html, id L20998.
Form and metre
Hoarded Joy is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABB-ACCA beA · redB · headB · fecundity · weA · shadeC · fadeC · treeA
- 2 ABABCC sunA · streamB · oneA · gleamB · freeC · seaC
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I said: 'Nay, pluck not,--let the first fruit be: | 10 | ·········· |
| Even as thou sayest, it is sweet and red, | 10 | /˘········ |
| But let it ripen still. The tree's bent head | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Sees in the stream its own fecundity | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
| And bides the day of fulness. Shall not we | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| At the sun's hour that day possess the shade, | 10 | ···/··˘/·· |
| And claim our fruit before its ripeness fade, | 10 | ··/····/˘· |
| And eat it from the branch and praise the tree?' | 10 | ·········· |
| I say: 'Alas! our fruit hath wooed the sun | 10 | ··˘//····· |
| Too long,--'tis fallen and floats adown the stream. | 11 | ···/˘··˘/·· |
| Lo, the last clusters! Pluck them every one, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And let us sup with summer; ere the gleam | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Of autumn set the year's pent sorrow free, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And the woods wail like echoes from the sea.' | 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.