When I Think of Thee, Brother
When I think of thee, brother,Is my heart not all thine?Yet the face of anotherSeems bending o’er mine.I call thee by name, yet a name not thy ownHas whispered already its dear undertone.
When I think thine eyes greet me,Their sweet flash of blueBrings another’s to meet meOf somberer hue;And ever before me they seem to remain,Though my heart but repines to behold thee again.
When I list, and would hear theeOnce more in our home,And thy voice appears near me,Another’s has come.I dream of thee only, for thee only sigh,Yet thy image forsakes me; another’s is nigh.
When thy fond smiles come o’er me,As in moments now flown,There riseth before meA look not thy own:’Tis thee I recall to my mind, O my brother!Yet ever with thine comes the gaze of another.
Words in this poem
- undertone n.
- A low or subdued tone or utterance; a tone less loud than usual.
- flown a.
- Flushed, inflated.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
When I Think of Thee, Brother is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poems of Thomas Gordon Hake, Project Gutenberg ebook #78947; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Gordon Hake, When I Think of Thee, Brother, in Poems (1870), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #78947, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hake-poems/when-i-think-of-thee-brother.html, id L23606.
Form and metre
When I Think of Thee, Brother is 24 lines in 4 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABCC. The metre is anapaestic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in anapaestic dimeter.
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 ABABCC brotherA · thineB · anotherA · mineB · ownC · undertoneC
- 2 ABABCC meA · blueB · meA · hueB · remainC · againC
- 3 ABABCC theeA · homeB · meA · comeB · sighC · nighC
- 4 ABABCC meA · flownB · meA · ownB · brotherC · anotherC
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 anapaestic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When I think of thee, brother, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Is my heart not all thine? | 6 | ······ |
| Yet the face of another | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Seems bending o’er mine. | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| I call thee by name, yet a name not thy own | 11 | ··········· |
| Has whispered already its dear undertone. | 11 | ·/˘˘/˘··/˘· |
| When I think thine eyes greet me, | 7 | ······· |
| Their sweet flash of blue | 5 | ····· |
| Brings another’s to meet me | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| Of somberer hue; | 5 | ····· |
| And ever before me they seem to remain, | 10 | ·/······˘/ |
| Though my heart but repines to behold thee again. | 12 | ·······˘/·˘/ |
| When I list, and would hear thee | 7 | ······· |
| Once more in our home, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And thy voice appears near me, | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| Another’s has come. | 5 | ˘/˘·· |
| I dream of thee only, for thee only sigh, | 11 | ····/˘··/˘· |
| Yet thy image forsakes me; another’s is nigh. | 12 | ··/˘˘/·˘/˘·· |
| When thy fond smiles come o’er me, | 7 | ······· |
| As in moments now flown, | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| There riseth before me | 6 | ······ |
| A look not thy own: | 5 | ····· |
| ’Tis thee I recall to my mind, O my brother! | 12 | ···˘/·····/˘ |
| Yet ever with thine comes the gaze of another. | 11 | ·/······˘/˘ |
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.