Chapter IX: Story on the World going on without us
Two couplets quite roasted my liver one day,That a minstrel with Rebeck sang sweet, in this way:"Alas! that without us for many a year,The roses will grow and the tulips appear !Many Junes and Decembers and Aprils will pass,While still we remain bricks and ashes, alas!The garden will still yield its rose after us,And friends will, together, sit down and discuss."
Words in this poem
- discuss v. t.
- To break to pieces; to shatter. Sir T. Browne. [L. discussus, p. p. of discutere to strike asunder (hence came the sense to separate mentally, distinguish); dis- + quatere to shake, strike. See Quash.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chapter IX: Story on the World going on without us is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Garden of Fragrance: being a complete translation of the Bostan of Sadi from the original Persian into English verse, by G. S. Davie (London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., 1882), Internet Archive, the G. S. Davie translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Saadi, Chapter IX: Story on the World going on without us, in The Garden of Fragrance (1882), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/saadi-bostan/9-8.html, id L29742.
Form and metre
Chapter IX: Story on the World going on without us is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in anapaestic 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 AABBCCDD dayA · wayA · yearB · appearB · passC · alasC · usD · discussD
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Two couplets quite roasted my liver one day, | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| That a minstrel with Rebeck sang sweet, in this way: | 12 | ··/˘·/˘····· |
| "Alas! that without us for many a year, | 11 | ˘/·····/˘·· |
| The roses will grow and the tulips appear ! | 11 | ·/˘····/˘˘/ |
| Many Junes and Decembers and Aprils will pass, | 11 | /··˘/˘·/˘·· |
| While still we remain bricks and ashes, alas! | 11 | ···˘/··/˘˘/ |
| The garden will still yield its rose after us, | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| And friends will, together, sit down and discuss." | 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.