Song
My heart to thy heart,My hand to thine;My lip to thy lips,Kisses are wineBrewed for the lover in sunshine and shade;Let me drink deep, then, my African maid.
Lily to lily,Rose unto rose;My love to thy loveTenderly grows.Rend not the oak and the ivy in twain,Nor the swart maid from her swarthier swain.
Words in this poem
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
- tenderly adv.
- In a tender manner; with tenderness; mildly; gently; softly; in a manner not to injure or give pain; with pity or affection; kindly.
- twain a.
- Two;- nearly obsolete in common discourse, but used in poetry and burlesque. [OE. twein, tweien, tweyne, AS. twegen, masc. See Two.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song 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, Song, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/song.html, id L00496.
Form and metre
Song is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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-ABB heart · thineA · lips · wineA · shadeB · maidB
- 2 -A-ABB lily · roseA · love · growsA · twainB · swainB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My heart to thy heart, | 5 | ····· |
| My hand to thine; | 4 | ···· |
| My lip to thy lips, | 5 | ····· |
| Kisses are wine | 4 | /˘·· |
| Brewed for the lover in sunshine and shade; | 10 | ···/˘·/··· |
| Let me drink deep, then, my African maid. | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Lily to lily, | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| Rose unto rose; | 4 | ···· |
| My love to thy love | 5 | ····· |
| Tenderly grows. | 4 | /˘˘· |
| Rend not the oak and the ivy in twain, | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| Nor the swart maid from her swarthier swain. | 9 | ········· |
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.