Jilted
OH! golden is the gorse-bush,Beneath an April sky,The lark is full of singing,The clouds are white and high;But my love, my love is faithless,And she cares no more for I!
Then what’s the good of living,With the bright sun overhead,When the earth is always readyAnd will give a kinder bed,Where no vows be made or broken,And no bitter words are said!
About this text
Jilted 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, Jilted, in Songs of Three Counties, and Other Poems (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #50591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hall-three-counties/jilted.html, id L22671.
Form and metre
Jilted is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 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 -A-A-A bush · skyA · singing · highA · faithless · iA
- 2 -A-A-A living · overheadA · ready · bedA · broken · saidA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| OH! golden is the gorse-bush, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Beneath an April sky, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The lark is full of singing, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| The clouds are white and high; | 6 | ······ |
| But my love, my love is faithless, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And she cares no more for I! | 7 | ······· |
| Then what’s the good of living, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| With the bright sun overhead, | 7 | ····/˘/ |
| When the earth is always ready | 8 | ····/·/˘ |
| And will give a kinder bed, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Where no vows be made or broken, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And no bitter words are said! | 7 | ··/˘··· |
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.