Names
I ask'd my fair one happy day,What I should call her in my lay;By what sweet name from Rome or Greece;Lalage, Nesera, Chloris,Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris,Arethusa or Lucrece.
"Ah!" replied my gentle fair,"Beloved, what are names but air?Choose thou whatever suits the line;Call me Sappho, call me Chloris,Call me Lalage or Doris,Only, only call me Thine."
Words in this poem
- sappho n.
- Any one of several species of brilliant South American humming birds of the genus Sappho, having very bright-colored and deeply forked tails; -- called also firetail. [See Sapphic.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Names is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Coleridge, Project Gutenberg ebook #8208; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Names, in Poems of Coleridge (1796–1817), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8208, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coleridge-poems/names.html, id L00361.
Form and metre
Names is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABCCB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in trochaic 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 AABCCB dayA · layA · greeceB · chlorisC · dorisC · lucreceB
- 2 AABCCB fairA · airA · lineB · chlorisC · dorisC · thineB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I ask'd my fair one happy day, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| What I should call her in my lay; | 8 | ········ |
| By what sweet name from Rome or Greece; | 8 | ········ |
| Lalage, Nesera, Chloris, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris, | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| Arethusa or Lucrece. | 7 | ······· |
| "Ah!" replied my gentle fair, | 7 | ·˘/·/˘· |
| "Beloved, what are names but air? | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| Choose thou whatever suits the line; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Call me Sappho, call me Chloris, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Call me Lalage or Doris, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Only, only call me Thine." | 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.