Translated Out of Spanish
Though we may seem importunate,While your compassion we implore;They whom you make too fortunate,May with presumption vex you more.
About this text
Translated Out of Spanish is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham, Project Gutenberg ebook #12322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edmund Waller, Translated Out of Spanish, in Cooper's Hill, and Other Poems (1645–1668), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waller-denham/translated-out-of-spanish.html, id L09125.
Form and metre
Translated Out of Spanish is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 importunateA · imploreB · fortunateA · moreB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Though we may seem importunate, | 8 | ····˘/˘˘ |
| While your compassion we implore; | 8 | ··˘/˘·˘/ |
| They whom you make too fortunate, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| May with presumption vex you more. | 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.