Poem IV
Looking aside I saw a stately Bed,Adorned all with costly cloth of gold,That might for anie princes couche be red,And deckt with daintie flowres, as if it sholdBe for some bride, her ioyous night to hold:Therein a goodly virgine sleeping lay;A fairer wight saw never summers day.
I heard a voyce that called farre away,And her awaking bad her quickly dight,For lo! her bridegrome was in readie rayTo come to her, and seeke her loves delight:With that she started up with cherefull sight,When suddeinly both bed and all was gone,And I in languor left there all alone.
Words in this poem
- goodly a.
- Pleasant; agreeable; desirable. [OE. godlich, AS. g. See Good, and Like.]
- wight n.
- A whit; a bit; a jot. [OE. wight, wiht, a wight, a whit, AS. wiht, wuht, a creature, a thing; skin to D. wicht a child, OS. & OHG. wiht a creature, thing, G. wicht a creature, Icel. v]
- farre n.
- A young pig, or a litter of pigs. [See Farrow.]
- dight v. t.
- To prepare; to put in order; hence, to dress, or put on; to array; to adorn. [OF. dihten, AS. dihtan to dictate, command, dispose, arrange, fr. L. dictare to say often, dictate, order; cf. G. dichten to write poetry, fr. L. dictare. See D]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poem IV 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 IV, in Amoretti and Epithalamion, and Other Poems (1595), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10602, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/spenser-amoretti/poem-iv-2.html, id L23746.
Form and metre
Poem IV is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABBCC, the Rhyme royal. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in rhyme royal, 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 ABABBCC bedA · goldB · redA · sholdB · holdB · layC · dayC
- 2 ABABBCC awayA · dightB · rayA · delightB · sightB · goneC · aloneC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Looking aside I saw a stately Bed, | 10 | /˘˘/···/˘· |
| Adorned all with costly cloth of gold, | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘··· |
| That might for anie princes couche be red, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And deckt with daintie flowres, as if it shold | 10 | ·····/···· |
| Be for some bride, her ioyous night to hold: | 10 | ·········· |
| Therein a goodly virgine sleeping lay; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| A fairer wight saw never summers day. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| I heard a voyce that called farre away, | 10 | ······˘·˘/ |
| And her awaking bad her quickly dight, | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| For lo! her bridegrome was in readie ray | 11 | ··········· |
| To come to her, and seeke her loves delight: | 10 | ········˘/ |
| With that she started up with cherefull sight, | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| When suddeinly both bed and all was gone, | 10 | ·········· |
| And I in languor left there all alone. | 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.