Song
Oh the tear is in my eye, and my heart it is breaking,Thou hast fled from me, Connor, and left me forsaken;Bright and warm was our morning, but soon has it faded,For I gave thee a true heart, and thou hast betrayed it.
Thy footsteps I followed in darkness and danger,From the home of my love to the land of the stranger;Thou wert mine through the tempest, the blight, and the burning;Could I think thou wouldst change when the morn was returning.
Yet peace to thy heart, though from mine it must sever,May she love thee as I loved, alone and for ever;I may weep for thy loss, but my faith is unshaken,And the heart thou hast widowed will bless thee in breaking.
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Culprit Fay, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #317; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Joseph Rodman Drake, Song, in The Culprit Fay and Other Poems (1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #317, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drake-culprit-fay/song-3.html, id L25975.
Form and metre
Song is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in anapaestic 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.
- 2 AABB dangerA · strangerA · burningB · returningB
- 3 AA-- severA · everA · unshaken · breaking
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Oh the tear is in my eye, and my heart it is breaking, | 14 | ············/˘ |
| Thou hast fled from me, Connor, and left me forsaken; | 13 | ·····/˘···˘/˘ |
| Bright and warm was our morning, but soon has it faded, | 14 | ····/˘/˘····/˘ |
| For I gave thee a true heart, and thou hast betrayed it. | 13 | ··········˘/· |
| Thy footsteps I followed in darkness and danger, | 13 | ·/··/˘˘·/˘·/˘ |
| From the home of my love to the land of the stranger; | 13 | ···········/˘ |
| Thou wert mine through the tempest, the blight, and the burning; | 13 | ·····/˘····/˘ |
| Could I think thou wouldst change when the morn was returning. | 13 | ··········˘/˘ |
| Yet peace to thy heart, though from mine it must sever, | 12 | ··········/˘ |
| May she love thee as I loved, alone and for ever; | 13 | ·······˘/··/˘ |
| I may weep for thy loss, but my faith is unshaken, | 13 | ··········˘/˘ |
| And the heart thou hast widowed will bless thee in breaking. | 13 | ·····/˘····/˘ |
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.