A Gentle Wind
A gentle wind fans the calm night:A bright moon shines on the high tower.A voice whispers, but no one answers when I call:A shadow stirs, but no one comes when I beckon.The kitchen-man brings in a dish of lentils:Wine is there, but I do not fill my cup.Contentment with poverty is Fortune’s best gift:Riches and Honour are the handmaids of Disaster.Though gold and gems by the world are sought and prized,To me they seem no more than weeds or chaff.
Words in this poem
- beckon v. t.
- To make a significant sign to; hence, to summon, as by a motion of the hand.
- honour n.
- Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. [OE. honor, honour, onour, onur, OF. honor, onor, honur, onur, honour, onour, F. honneur, fr. L. honor, honos.]
- disaster n.
- An unpropitious or baleful aspect of a planet or star; malevolent influence of a heavenly body; hence, an ill portent. [F. désastre; pref. dés- (L. dis-) + astre star, fr. L. astrum; a word of astrological origin. See Aster, Astral, Star.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Gentle Wind is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, the Arthur Waley translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, A Gentle Wind, in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/a-gentle-wind.html, id L18774.
Form and metre
A Gentle Wind is 10 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.8 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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.
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A gentle wind fans the calm night: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| A bright moon shines on the high tower. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| A voice whispers, but no one answers when I call: | 12 | ··/˘···/˘··· |
| A shadow stirs, but no one comes when I beckon. | 12 | ·/········/˘ |
| The kitchen-man brings in a dish of lentils: | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| Wine is there, but I do not fill my cup. | 10 | ·········· |
| Contentment with poverty is Fortune’s best gift: | 12 | ˘/˘·/˘˘·/˘·· |
| Riches and Honour are the handmaids of Disaster. | 13 | /˘·/˘·····˘/˘ |
| Though gold and gems by the world are sought and prized, | 11 | ··········· |
| To me they seem no more than weeds or chaff. | 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.