Secret Love
He gloomily sat by the wall,As gaily she danced with them all.Her laughter's light spellOn every one fell;His heartstrings were near unto rending,But this there was none comprehending.
She fled from the house, when at eveHe came there to take his last leave.To hide her she crept,She wept and she wept;Her life-hope was shattered past mending,But this there was none comprehending.
Long years dragged but heavily o'er,And then he came back there once more.--Her lot was the best,In peace and at rest;Her thought was of him at life's ending,But this there was none comprehending.
Words in this poem
- gaily adv.
- Merrily; showily. See gaily. [From Gay.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Secret Love 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, Secret Love, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/secret-love.html, id L29259.
Form and metre
Secret Love is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABBCC. The metre is anapaestic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in anapaestic trimeter.
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 AABBCC wallA · allA · spellB · fellB · rendingC · comprehendingC
- 2 AABBCC eveA · leaveA · creptB · weptB · mendingC · comprehendingC
- 3 AABBCC o'erA · moreA · bestB · restB · endingC · comprehendingC
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 anapaestic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| He gloomily sat by the wall, | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| As gaily she danced with them all. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Her laughter's light spell | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| On every one fell; | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| His heartstrings were near unto rending, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| But this there was none comprehending. | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| She fled from the house, when at eve | 8 | ········ |
| He came there to take his last leave. | 8 | ········ |
| To hide her she crept, | 5 | ····· |
| She wept and she wept; | 5 | ····· |
| Her life-hope was shattered past mending, | 9 | ····/˘·/˘ |
| But this there was none comprehending. | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| Long years dragged but heavily o'er, | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| And then he came back there once more. | 8 | ········ |
| --Her lot was the best, | 5 | ····· |
| In peace and at rest; | 5 | ····· |
| Her thought was of him at life's ending, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| But this there was none comprehending. | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
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.