Poem XV
"When the sweet Spring was ascending,Not yet May, at April's ending,While the sun was heavenward wending,Stood a girl of grace transcendingUnderneath the green bough, sendingSongs aloft with pipings."
Another gives a slightly comic turn to the chief incident.
About this text
Poem XV 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, Poem XV, in Wine, Women and Song (1884), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18044, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/symonds-wine-women/poem-xv.html, id L11830.
Form and metre
Poem XV is 7 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, 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 AAAAA- ascendingA · endingA · wendingA · transcendingA · sendingA · pipings
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "When the sweet Spring was ascending, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Not yet May, at April's ending, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| While the sun was heavenward wending, | 9 | ····/˘˘/˘ |
| Stood a girl of grace transcending | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Underneath the green bough, sending | 8 | ·˘/···/˘ |
| Songs aloft with pipings." | 6 | ·˘/·/˘ |
| Another gives a slightly comic turn to the chief incident. | 16 | ˘/˘··/˘/˘····/˘˘ |
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.