Planting Flowers on the Eastern Embankment

Various (about 800), translated by Arthur Waley · 1918

iambic pentameter · 24 lines · from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems

I took money and bought flowering treesAnd planted them out on the bank to the east of the Keep.I simply bought whatever had most blooms,Not caring whether peach, apricot, or plum.A hundred fruits, all mixed up together;A thousand branches, flowering in due rotation.Each has its season coming early or late;But to all alike the fertile soil is kind.The red flowers hang like a heavy mist;The white flowers gleam like a fall of snow.The wandering bees cannot bear to leave them;The sweet birds also come there to roost.In front there flows an ever-running stream;Beneath there is built a little flat terrace.Sometimes I sweep the flagstones of the terrace;Sometimes, in the wind, I raise my cup and drink.The flower-branches screen my head from the sun;The flower-buds fall down into my lap.Alone drinking, alone singing my songsI do not notice that the moon is level with the steps.The people of Pa do not care for flowers;All the spring no one has come to look.But their Governor General, alone with his cup of wineSits till evening and will not move from the place!

About this text

Planting Flowers on the Eastern Embankment 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, Planting Flowers on the Eastern Embankment, in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/planting-flowers-on-the-eastern-embankment.html, id L18852.

Form and metre

Planting Flowers on the Eastern Embankment is 24 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.9 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.

See other poems in iambic pentameter.

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. 1 ---A------A--BB--------- trees · keep · blooms · plumA · together · rotation · late · kind · mist · snow · themA · roost · stream · terraceB · terraceB · drink · sun · lap · songs · steps · flowers · look · wine · place
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 pentameter. How this is done.

LineSyl.Stress
I took money and bought flowering trees10··/˘··/˘˘·
And planted them out on the bank to the east of the Keep.14·/˘···········
I simply bought whatever had most blooms,10·/˘··/˘···
Not caring whether peach, apricot, or plum.11·/˘···/˘···
A hundred fruits, all mixed up together;11·/˘˘····˘/˘
A thousand branches, flowering in due rotation.12·/˘/˘/˘··˘/˘
Each has its season coming early or late;11···/˘/˘/˘··
But to all alike the fertile soil is kind.11···˘/·/˘···
The red flowers hang like a heavy mist;10··/˘···/˘·
The white flowers gleam like a fall of snow.10··/˘······
The wandering bees cannot bear to leave them;11·/˘˘·/˘····
The sweet birds also come there to roost.9···/˘····
In front there flows an ever-running stream;10·····/˘/˘·
Beneath there is built a little flat terrace.11······/˘·/˘
Sometimes I sweep the flagstones of the terrace;11˘/···/···/˘
Sometimes, in the wind, I raise my cup and drink.11˘/·········
The flower-branches screen my head from the sun;11·/˘/˘······
The flower-buds fall down into my lap.10·/˘·······
Alone drinking, alone singing my songs10˘//˘˘//˘··
I do not notice that the moon is level with the steps.14···/˘····/˘···
The people of Pa do not care for flowers;11·/˘······/˘
All the spring no one has come to look.9·········
But their Governor General, alone with his cup of wine13··/˘/˘˘/·····
Sits till evening and will not move from the place!11··/˘·······

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.

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