A Little Song
A RIPPLE and a rush, and a mating thrush,And, oh! the month must be at May.A blossom and a tree, and a honey-bee,And, oh! it’s such a perfect day!
A meeting and a smile, and a sunlit mile,And, oh! the world is very young.Come winter, storm or cold,Love never can grow old,And oh! my little song is sung!
Words in this poem
- sunlit a.
- Lighted by the sun.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Little Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #50591; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Radclyffe Hall, A Little Song, in Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #50591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hall-three-counties/a-little-song.html, id L22683.
Form and metre
A Little Song is 9 lines in 2 stanzas.
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-A thrush · mayA · bee · dayA
- 2 -ABBA mile · youngA · coldB · oldB · sungA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A RIPPLE and a rush, and a mating thrush, | 11 | ·/˘·····/˘· |
| And, oh! the month must be at May. | 8 | ········ |
| A blossom and a tree, and a honey-bee, | 11 | ·/˘·····/˘· |
| And, oh! it’s such a perfect day! | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| A meeting and a smile, and a sunlit mile, | 11 | ·/˘·····/·· |
| And, oh! the world is very young. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Come winter, storm or cold, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Love never can grow old, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And oh! my little song is sung! | 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.