Spring Song
A blue-bell springs upon the ledge,A lark sits singing in the hedge;Sweet perfumes scent the balmy air,And life is brimming everywhere.What lark and breeze and bluebird sing,Is Spring, Spring, Spring!
No more the air is sharp and cold;The planter wends across the wold,And, glad, beneath the shining skyWe wander forth, my love and I.And ever in our hearts doth ringThis song of Spring, Spring!
For life is life and love is love,'Twixt maid and man or dove and dove.Life may be short, life may be long,But love will come, and to its songShall this refrain for ever clingOf Spring, Spring, Spring!
Words in this poem
- balmy a.
- Having the qualities of balm; odoriferous; aromatic; assuaging; soothing; refreshing; mild.
- brimming a.
- Full to the brim; overflowing.
- bluebird n.
- A small song bird (Sialia sialis), very common in the United States, and, in the north, one of the earliest to arrive in spring.
- planter n.
- One who, or that which, plants or sows; as, a planterof corn; a machine planter.
- wold n.
- A wood; a forest. [OE. wold, wald, AS. weald, wald, a wood, forest; akin to OFries. & OS. wald, D. woud, G. wald, Icel. völlr, a field, and probably to Gr. va a garden, inclosure.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Spring 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, Spring Song, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/spring-song.html, id L00514.
Form and metre
Spring Song is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABBCC. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 22% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 AABBCC ledgeA · hedgeA · airB · everywhereB · singC · springC
- 2 AABBCC coldA · woldA · skyB · iB · ringC · springC
- 3 AABBCC loveA · doveA · longB · songB · clingC · springC
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A blue-bell springs upon the ledge, | 8 | ········ |
| A lark sits singing in the hedge; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Sweet perfumes scent the balmy air, | 8 | ·˘/··/˘· |
| And life is brimming everywhere. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| What lark and breeze and bluebird sing, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Is Spring, Spring, Spring! | 4 | ···· |
| No more the air is sharp and cold; | 8 | ········ |
| The planter wends across the wold, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| And, glad, beneath the shining sky | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| We wander forth, my love and I. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And ever in our hearts doth ring | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| This song of Spring, Spring! | 5 | ····· |
| For life is life and love is love, | 8 | ········ |
| 'Twixt maid and man or dove and dove. | 8 | ········ |
| Life may be short, life may be long, | 8 | ········ |
| But love will come, and to its song | 8 | ········ |
| Shall this refrain for ever cling | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Of Spring, Spring, Spring! | 4 | ···· |
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.