Welcome to Spring
Spring is coming! longed-for springNow his joy discloses;On his fair brow in a ringBloom empurpled roses!Birds are gay; how sweet their lay!Tuneful is the measure;The wild wood grows green again,Songsters change our winter's painTo a mirthful pleasure.
Now let young men gather flowers,On their foreheads bind them,Maidens pluck them from the bowers,Then, when they have twined them,Breathe perfume from bud and bloom,Where young love reposes,And into the meadows soAll together laughing go,Crowned with ruddy roses.
Words in this poem
- tuneful a.
- Harmonious; melodious; musical; as, tuneful notes.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Welcome to 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, Welcome to Spring, in Wine, Women and Song (1884), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18044, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/symonds-wine-women/welcome-to-spring.html, id L11812.
Form and metre
Welcome to Spring is 18 lines in 2 stanzas of 9 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.7 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 22% 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 ABAB-CDDC springA · disclosesB · ringA · rosesB · lay · measureC · againD · painD · pleasureC
- 2 ABAB-CDDC flowersA · themB · bowersA · themB · bloom · reposesC · soD · goD · rosesC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Spring is coming! longed-for spring | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Now his joy discloses; | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
| On his fair brow in a ring | 7 | ······· |
| Bloom empurpled roses! | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Birds are gay; how sweet their lay! | 7 | ······· |
| Tuneful is the measure; | 6 | /˘··/˘ |
| The wild wood grows green again, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Songsters change our winter's pain | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| To a mirthful pleasure. | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Now let young men gather flowers, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| On their foreheads bind them, | 6 | ··/··· |
| Maidens pluck them from the bowers, | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Then, when they have twined them, | 6 | ······ |
| Breathe perfume from bud and bloom, | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| Where young love reposes, | 6 | ···/·˘ |
| And into the meadows so | 7 | ····/·· |
| All together laughing go, | 7 | ·˘/˘/˘· |
| Crowned with ruddy roses. | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
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.