Poem I
Upon that famous rivers further shore,There stood a snowie Swan, of heavenly hiewAnd gentle kinde as ever fowle afore;A fairer one in all the goodlie criewOf white Strimonian brood might no man view:There he most sweetly sung the prophecieOf his owne death in dolefull elegie.
At last, when all his mourning melodieHe ended had, that both the shores resounded,Feeling the fit that him forewarnd to die,With loftie flight above the earth he bounded,And out of sight to highest heaven mounted,Where now he is become an heavenly signe;There now the ioy is his, here sorrow mine.
Words in this poem
- afore prep.
- Before (in all its senses).
- dolefull a.
- Full of dole or grief; expressing or exciting sorrow; sorrowful; sad; dismal.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poem I is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5, Project Gutenberg ebook #10602; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edmund Spenser, Poem I, in Amoretti and Epithalamion, and Other Poems (1595), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10602, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/spenser-amoretti/poem-i-2.html, id L23743.
Form and metre
Poem I is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 -A-AABB shore · hiewA · afore · criewA · viewA · prophecieB · elegieB
- 2 -A-A--- melodie · resoundedA · die · boundedA · mounted · signe · mine
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Upon that famous rivers further shore, | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| There stood a snowie Swan, of heavenly hiew | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And gentle kinde as ever fowle afore; | 10 | ·/˘··//˘˘/ |
| A fairer one in all the goodlie criew | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Of white Strimonian brood might no man view: | 10 | ·········· |
| There he most sweetly sung the prophecie | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Of his owne death in dolefull elegie. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| At last, when all his mourning melodie | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| He ended had, that both the shores resounded, | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| Feeling the fit that him forewarnd to die, | 11 | /˘········· |
| With loftie flight above the earth he bounded, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| And out of sight to highest heaven mounted, | 11 | ·····/˘/˘/˘ |
| Where now he is become an heavenly signe; | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| There now the ioy is his, here sorrow mine. | 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.