Love in the Guise of Friendship
Your friendship much can make me blest,O why that bliss destroy!Why urge the only, one requestYou know I will deny!
Your thought, if Love must harbour there,Conceal it in that thought;Nor cause me from my bosom tearThe very friend I sought.
Words in this poem
- harbour n.
- A station for rest and entertainment; a place of security and comfort; a refuge; a shelter. [OE herbor, herberwe, herberge, Icel. herbergi (cf. OHG. heriberga), orig., a shelter for soldiers; herr army + bjarga to save, help, defend; akin to AS. here ar]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love in the Guise of Friendship is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, Project Gutenberg ebook #1279; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Burns, Love in the Guise of Friendship, in Poems and Songs (1786–1796), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1279, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/burns-poems/love-in-the-guise-of-friendship.html, id L03113.
Form and metre
Love in the Guise of Friendship is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
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 A-A- blestA · destroy · requestA · deny
- 2 ABAB thereA · thoughtB · tearA · soughtB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Your friendship much can make me blest, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| O why that bliss destroy! | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Why urge the only, one request | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| You know I will deny! | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Your thought, if Love must harbour there, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Conceal it in that thought; | 6 | ˘/···· |
| Nor cause me from my bosom tear | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The very friend I sought. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
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.