Modest Love
Summer sweet is coming in;Now the pleasant days begin;Phoebus rules the earth at last;For sad winter's reign is past.
Wounded with the love aloneOf one girl, I make my moan:Grief pursues me till she bendUnto me and condescend.
Take thou pity on my plight!With my heart thy heart unite!In my love thy own love blending,Finding thus of life the ending!
Words in this poem
- phoebus n.
- Apollo; the sun god.
- condescend v. i.
- To stoop or descend; to let one's self down; to submit; to waive the privilege of rank or dignity; to accommodate one's self to an inferior. [F. condescendre, LL. condescendere, fr. L. con- + descendere. See Descend.]
- plight v. t.
- To weave; to braid; to fold; to plait. [OE. pliten; probably through Old French, fr. LL. plectare, L. plectere. See Plait, Ply.]
- blending n.
- The act of mingling.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Modest Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from Wine, Women, and Song Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #18044; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Addington Symonds, Modest Love, in Wine, Women and Song (1884), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18044, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/symonds-wine-women/modest-love.html, id L11821.
Form and metre
Modest Love is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 AABB inA · beginA · lastB · pastB
- 2 AABB aloneA · moanA · bendB · condescendB
- 3 AABB plightA · uniteA · blendingB · endingB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Summer sweet is coming in; | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Now the pleasant days begin; | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Phoebus rules the earth at last; | 7 | /˘····· |
| For sad winter's reign is past. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Wounded with the love alone | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| Of one girl, I make my moan: | 7 | ······· |
| Grief pursues me till she bend | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| Unto me and condescend. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Take thou pity on my plight! | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| With my heart thy heart unite! | 7 | ·····/· |
| In my love thy own love blending, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Finding thus of life the ending! | 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.