Laughing Song
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;When the air does laugh with our merry wit,And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;
when the meadows laugh with lively green,And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene,When Mary and Susan and EmilyWith their sweet round mouths sing "Ha, ha he!"
When the painted birds laugh in the shade,Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread:Come live, and be merry, and join with me,To sing the sweet chorus of "Ha, ha, he!"
About this text
Laughing Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of William Blake, Project Gutenberg ebook #574; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Blake, Laughing Song, in Poems of William Blake (1783–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #574, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-poems/laughing-song.html, id L01990.
Form and metre
Laughing Song is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%). 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 --AA joy · by · witA · itA
- 2 AA-- greenA · sceneA · emily · he
- 3 --AA shade · spread · meA · heA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, | 10 | ·········· |
| And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; | 10 | ··/˘˘··/˘· |
| When the air does laugh with our merry wit, | 10 | ······//˘· |
| And the green hill laughs with the noise of it; | 10 | ·········· |
| when the meadows laugh with lively green, | 9 | ··/···/˘· |
| And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene, | 11 | ··/·˘···/˘· |
| When Mary and Susan and Emily | 10 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘˘ |
| With their sweet round mouths sing "Ha, ha he!" | 9 | ········· |
| When the painted birds laugh in the shade, | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread: | 11 | ·//˘·/˘···· |
| Come live, and be merry, and join with me, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| To sing the sweet chorus of "Ha, ha, he!" | 10 | ····/˘···· |
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.