Love's Castle
Key and bar, key and bar,Iron bolt and chain!And what will you do when the King comesTo enter his domain?
Turn key and lift bar,Loose, oh, bolt and chain!Open the door and let him in,And then lock up again.
But, oh, heart, and woe, heart,Why do you ache so sore?Never a moment's peace have youSince Love hath passed the door.
Turn key and lift bar,And loose bolt and chain;But Love took in his esquire, Grief,And there they both remain.
Words in this poem
- ache n.
- A name given to several species of plants; as, smallage, wild celery, parsley. Holland. [F. ache, L. apium parsley.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love's Castle is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Project Gutenberg ebook #18338; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Paul Laurence Dunbar, Love's Castle, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/love-s-castle.html, id L00759.
Form and metre
Love's Castle is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is short measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.3 syllables. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in short 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 bar · chainA · comes · domainA
- 2 -AAA bar · chainA · inA · againA
- 3 -A-A heart · soreA · you · doorA
- 4 -A-A bar · chainA · grief · remainA
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 short measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Key and bar, key and bar, | 6 | ······ |
| Iron bolt and chain! | 5 | /˘··· |
| And what will you do when the King comes | 9 | ········· |
| To enter his domain? | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| Turn key and lift bar, | 5 | ····· |
| Loose, oh, bolt and chain! | 5 | ····· |
| Open the door and let him in, | 8 | /˘······ |
| And then lock up again. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| But, oh, heart, and woe, heart, | 6 | ······ |
| Why do you ache so sore? | 6 | ······ |
| Never a moment's peace have you | 7 | /·/˘··· |
| Since Love hath passed the door. | 6 | ······ |
| Turn key and lift bar, | 5 | ····· |
| And loose bolt and chain; | 5 | ····· |
| But Love took in his esquire, Grief, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| And there they both remain. | 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.