Hunting Song
Round us rolls the heather's sheen,Heather's sheen,'Neath the falcon of our queen,Of our queen.
Birch and cherry balm exhale,Balm exhale,Loud our horns the cliffs assail,Cliffs assail.
Light the air and clear the sky,Clear the sky,--Hurrah! onward, she is nigh,She is nigh.
Hunt ye joy with every breath,Every breath,Hunt it to the stream of death,Stream of death!
Words in this poem
- sheen v. i.
- To shine; to glisten.
- hurrah interj.
- A word used as a shout of joy, triumph, applause, encouragement, or welcome. [Cf. G., Dan., & Sw. hurra. Cf. Huzza.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hunting Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Songs, Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, the Arthur Hubbell Palmer 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: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Hunting Song, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/hunting-song.html, id L29282.
Form and metre
Hunting Song is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is iambic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in iambic dimeter.
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 AAAA sheenA · sheenA · queenA · queenA
- 2 AAAA exhaleA · exhaleA · assailA · assailA
- 3 AAAA skyA · skyA · nighA · nighA
- 4 AAAA breathA · breathA · deathA · deathA
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 dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Round us rolls the heather's sheen, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Heather's sheen, | 3 | /˘· |
| 'Neath the falcon of our queen, | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| Of our queen. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Birch and cherry balm exhale, | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Balm exhale, | 3 | ·˘/ |
| Loud our horns the cliffs assail, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Cliffs assail. | 3 | ·˘/ |
| Light the air and clear the sky, | 7 | ······· |
| Clear the sky,-- | 3 | ··· |
| Hurrah! onward, she is nigh, | 7 | ˘//˘··· |
| She is nigh. | 3 | ··· |
| Hunt ye joy with every breath, | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Every breath, | 4 | /˘˘· |
| Hunt it to the stream of death, | 7 | ······· |
| Stream of death! | 3 | ··· |
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.