The Death of Love
So Love is dead, the Love we knew of old!And in the sorrow of our hearts' hushed hallsA lute lies broken and a flower falls;Love's house stands empty and his hearth lies cold.Lone in dim places, where sweet vows were told,In walks grown desolate, by ruined wallsBeauty decays; and on their pedestalsDreams crumble and th' immortal gods are mold.Music is slain or sleeps; one voice alone,One voice awakes, and like a wandering ghostHaunts all the echoing chambers of the Past--The voice of Memory, that stills to stoneThe soul that hears; the mind, that, utterly lost,Before its beautiful presence stands aghast.
Words in this poem
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Death of Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #7796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Madison Julius Cawein, The Death of Love, in Poems (1911), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cawein-poems/the-death-of-love.html, id L10974.
Form and metre
The Death of Love is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.7 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 36% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ABBAABBAC-DC-D oldA · hallsB · fallsB · coldA · toldA · wallsB · pedestalsB · moldA · aloneC · ghost · pastD · stoneC · lost · aghastD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| So Love is dead, the Love we knew of old! | 10 | ·········· |
| And in the sorrow of our hearts' hushed halls | 10 | ···/˘·/··· |
| A lute lies broken and a flower falls; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Love's house stands empty and his hearth lies cold. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Lone in dim places, where sweet vows were told, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| In walks grown desolate, by ruined walls | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Beauty decays; and on their pedestals | 10 | /˘˘/···/˘˘ |
| Dreams crumble and th' immortal gods are mold. | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘··· |
| Music is slain or sleeps; one voice alone, | 10 | /˘······˘/ |
| One voice awakes, and like a wandering ghost | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Haunts all the echoing chambers of the Past-- | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The voice of Memory, that stills to stone | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| The soul that hears; the mind, that, utterly lost, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Before its beautiful presence stands aghast. | 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.