On a Sleeping Friend
Lady, when your lovely headDroops to sink among the Dead,And the quiet places keepYou that so divinely sleep;Then the dead shall blessèd beWith a new solemnity,For such Beauty, so descending,Pledges them that Death is ending.Sleep your fill--but when you wakeDawn shall over Lethe break.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- lethe n.
- A river of Hades whose waters when drunk caused forgetfulness of the past.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On a Sleeping Friend is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #60663; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Hilaire Belloc, On a Sleeping Friend, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/on-a-sleeping-friend.html, id L21723.
Form and metre
On a Sleeping Friend is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 80% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, 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--CCDD headA · deadA · keepB · sleepB · be · solemnity · descendingC · endingC · wakeD · breakD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Lady, when your lovely head | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Droops to sink among the Dead, | 7 | ······· |
| And the quiet places keep | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| You that so divinely sleep; | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| Then the dead shall blessèd be | 6 | ······ |
| With a new solemnity, | 7 | ···˘/˘˘ |
| For such Beauty, so descending, | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| Pledges them that Death is ending. | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Sleep your fill--but when you wake | 7 | ······· |
| Dawn shall over Lethe break. | 7 | ····/˘· |
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.