Song
Withdraw not yet those lips and fingers,Whose touch to mine is rapture’s spell;Life’s joy for us a moment lingers,And death seems in the word—farewell.The hour that bids us part and go,It sounds not yet,—oh! no, no, no!
Time, whilst I gaze upon thy sweetness,Flies like a courser nigh the goal;To-morrow where shall be his fleetness,When thou art parted from my soul?Our hearts shall beat, our tears shall flow,But not together,—no, no, no!
Words in this poem
- courser n.
- One who courses or hunts. [F. coursier.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- fleetness n.
- Swiftness; rapidity; velocity; celerity; speed; as, the fleetness of a horse or of time.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, Project Gutenberg ebook #59788; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Campbell, Song, in The Pleasures of Hope, and Other Poems (1824), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59788, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/campbell-poems/song-5.html, id L24454.
Form and metre
Song is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABCC. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 ABABCC fingersA · spellB · lingersA · farewellB · goC · noC
- 2 ABABCC sweetnessA · goalB · fleetnessA · soulB · flowC · noC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Withdraw not yet those lips and fingers, | 9 | ˘/·····/˘ |
| Whose touch to mine is rapture’s spell; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Life’s joy for us a moment lingers, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| And death seems in the word—farewell. | 8 | ·······/ |
| The hour that bids us part and go, | 8 | ·/······ |
| It sounds not yet,—oh! no, no, no! | 8 | ········ |
| Time, whilst I gaze upon thy sweetness, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Flies like a courser nigh the goal; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To-morrow where shall be his fleetness, | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| When thou art parted from my soul? | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Our hearts shall beat, our tears shall flow, | 8 | /···/··· |
| But not together,—no, no, no! | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
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.