To Her
Your presence like a benison to meWakes my sick soul to dreamful ecstasy,I fancy that some old Arabian nightSaw you my houri and my heart's delight.
And wandering forth beneath the passionate moon,Your love-strung zither and my soul in tune,We knew the joy, the haunting of the painThat like a flame thrills through me now again.
To-night we sit where sweet the spice winds blow,A wind the northland lacks and ne'er shall know,With clasped hands and spirits all aglowAs in Arabia in the long ago.
Words in this poem
- benison n.
- Blessing; beatitude; benediction. [OE. beneysun, benesoun, OF. beneï, beneïson, fr. L. benedictio, fr. benedicere to bless; bene (adv. of bonus good) + dicere to say. See Bounty, and Diction, and]
- dreamful a.
- Full of dreams.
- houri n.
- A nymph of paradise; -- so called by the Mohammedans. [Per. huri, hura, hur; akin to Ar. hur, pl. of ahwar beautiful-eyed, black-eyed.]
- 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,]
- aglow adv.
- In a glow; glowing; as, cheeks aglow; the landscape all aglow. [Pref. a- + glow.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Her 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, To Her, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/to-her.html, id L00867.
Form and metre
To Her is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 83% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 --AA me · ecstasy · nightA · delightA
- 2 AABB moonA · tuneA · painB · againB
- 3 AAAA blowA · knowA · aglowA · agoA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Your presence like a benison to me | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘·· |
| Wakes my sick soul to dreamful ecstasy, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| I fancy that some old Arabian night | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| Saw you my houri and my heart's delight. | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And wandering forth beneath the passionate moon, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Your love-strung zither and my soul in tune, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| We knew the joy, the haunting of the pain | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| That like a flame thrills through me now again. | 10 | ········˘/ |
| To-night we sit where sweet the spice winds blow, | 10 | ·········· |
| A wind the northland lacks and ne'er shall know, | 10 | ···/······ |
| With clasped hands and spirits all aglow | 10 | ··˘··/˘·˘/ |
| As in Arabia in the long ago. | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
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.