The Sweetness of the Spring
Vernal hours are sweet as clover,With love's honey running over;Every heart on this earth burningFinds new birth with spring's returning.
In the spring-time blossoms flourish,Fields drink moisture, heaven's dews nourish;Now the griefs of maidens, afterDark days, turn to love and laughter.
Whoso love, are loved, togetherSeek their pastime in spring weather;And, with time and place agreeing,Clasp, kiss, frolic, far from seeing.
Words in this poem
- whoso pron.
- Whosoever. Piers Plowman.
- pastime n.
- That which amuses, and serves to make time pass agreeably; sport; amusement; diversion. [Pass + time: cf. F. passetemps.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Sweetness of the Spring 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, The Sweetness of the Spring, in Wine, Women and Song (1884), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18044, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/symonds-wine-women/the-sweetness-of-the-spring.html, id L11819.
Form and metre
The Sweetness of the Spring 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 91%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 10 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% 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 cloverA · overA · burningB · returningB
- 2 AABB flourishA · nourishA · afterB · laughterB
- 3 AABB togetherA · weatherA · agreeingB · seeingB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Vernal hours are sweet as clover, | 9 | /˘/˘···/˘ |
| With love's honey running over; | 8 | ··/˘/˘·· |
| Every heart on this earth burning | 9 | /˘˘····/˘ |
| Finds new birth with spring's returning. | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| In the spring-time blossoms flourish, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Fields drink moisture, heaven's dews nourish; | 9 | ··/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Now the griefs of maidens, after | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Dark days, turn to love and laughter. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Whoso love, are loved, together | 8 | /˘···˘/˘ |
| Seek their pastime in spring weather; | 8 | ··/···/˘ |
| And, with time and place agreeing, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Clasp, kiss, frolic, far from seeing. | 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.