The First Meeting
The first fond meeting holyIs like the woodbirds' trilling,Is like a sea-song thrilling,When red the sun sinks slowly,--Is like a horn on mountain,That wakes time's sleep thereunderAnd summons to life's fountainTo meet in nature's wonder.
Words in this poem
- trilling n.
- One of tree children born at the same birth. Wright. [Cf. G. drilling.]
- thrilling a.
- Causing a thrill; causing tremulous excitement; deeply moving; as, a thrilling romance.
- thereunder adv.
- Under that or this.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The First Meeting 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, The First Meeting, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/the-first-meeting.html, id L29295.
Form and metre
The First Meeting is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBACDCD. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in iambic 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 ABBACDCD holyA · trillingB · thrillingB · slowlyA · mountainC · thereunderD · fountainC · wonderD
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The first fond meeting holy | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Is like the woodbirds' trilling, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Is like a sea-song thrilling, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| When red the sun sinks slowly,-- | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Is like a horn on mountain, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| That wakes time's sleep thereunder | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| And summons to life's fountain | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| To meet in nature's wonder. | 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.