Nightingales
The nightingales around our houseAmong the lovely orchard boughs:Where the young apple-dawn too soonTurns whiter than the daylit moon,And ’mid its shadowy silver bowersThe quince is flushed with heavenly flowersThat opening poise as though for flight:The nightingales sing day and night,With piercing, long, insistent calling,And chuckle of sweet waters falling,And unimaginable trillThat makes my heart beat and stand still.
Oh, even so, by night and dayWhen first the earth broke into MayEre men shut thunder up in shells,They came and sang their miracles;And so, in myriad Mays to come,When all those damnèd storms are dumbAnd only heaven’s lightning crownsHer clouds of thunder on the Downs,They still will come, by night and dayTo sing the radiant Spring away,Till men lie crumbled with their townsAnd earth no more breaks into May.
Words in this poem
- insistent a.
- Standing or resting on something; as, an insistent wall. Sir H. [L. insistens, -entis, p. pr. of insistere.]
- chuckle v. t.
- To call, as a hen her chickens; to cluck. [From lst Chuck.]
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
- myriad n.
- The number of ten thousand; ten thousand persons or things. [Gr. myriade.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Nightingales is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #56244; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Eleanor Farjeon, Nightingales, in Sonnets and Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56244, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/farjeon-sonnets-poems/nightingales.html, id L21983.
Form and metre
Nightingales is 24 lines in 2 stanzas of 12 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 -ABBAACC--DD house · boughsA · soonB · moonB · bowersA · flowersA · flightC · nightC · calling · falling · trillD · stillD
- 2 AABBCCDDAADA dayA · mayA · shellsB · miraclesB · comeC · dumbC · crownsD · downsD · dayA · awayA · townsD · mayA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The nightingales around our house | 8 | ·/˘˘··/· |
| Among the lovely orchard boughs: | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Where the young apple-dawn too soon | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Turns whiter than the daylit moon, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And ’mid its shadowy silver bowers | 8 | ···/˘/˘/ |
| The quince is flushed with heavenly flowers | 8 | ·····/˘/ |
| That opening poise as though for flight: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The nightingales sing day and night, | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| With piercing, long, insistent calling, | 9 | ·/˘·˘/˘/˘ |
| And chuckle of sweet waters falling, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| And unimaginable trill | 8 | ··˘/˘˘˘· |
| That makes my heart beat and stand still. | 8 | ········ |
| Oh, even so, by night and day | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| When first the earth broke into May | 8 | ········ |
| Ere men shut thunder up in shells, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| They came and sang their miracles; | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And so, in myriad Mays to come, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| When all those damnèd storms are dumb | 7 | ······· |
| And only heaven’s lightning crowns | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Her clouds of thunder on the Downs, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| They still will come, by night and day | 8 | ········ |
| To sing the radiant Spring away, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Till men lie crumbled with their towns | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And earth no more breaks into May. | 8 | ········ |
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.