Fairy Song
Have ye left the greenwood lone,Are your steps for ever gone?Fairy King and Elfin Queen,Come ye to the sylvan scene,From your dim and distant shore,Never more?
Shall the pilgrim never hearWith a thrill of joy and fear,In the hush of moonlight hours,Voices from the folded flowers,Faint, sweet flute-notes as of yore,Never more?
“Mortal! ne’er shall bowers of earthHear again our midnight mirth:By our brooks and dingles greenSince unhallow’d steps have been,Ours shall thread the forests hoarNever more.
“Ne’er on earth-born lily’s stemWill we hang the dewdrop’s gem;Ne’er shall reed or cowslip’s headQuiver to our dancing tread,By sweet fount or murmuring shore--Never more!”
Words in this poem
- greenwood n.
- A forest as it appears is spring and summer.
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
- elfin a.
- Relating to elves.
- 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,]
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
- hoar v. t.
- To become moldy or musty. [AS. harian to grow gray.]
- cowslip n.
- A common flower in England (Primula veris) having yellow blossoms and appearing in early spring. It is often cultivated in the United States. [AS. c, c, prob. orig., cow's droppings. Cf. Slop, n.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Fairy Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Felicia Hemans, Project Gutenberg ebook #66785; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Felicia Hemans, Fairy Song, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/fairy-song.html, id L19691.
Form and metre
Fairy Song is 24 lines in 4 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABBCC, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 --AABB lone · gone · queenA · sceneA · shoreB · moreB
- 2 AABBCC hearA · fearA · hoursB · flowersB · yoreC · moreC
- 3 AA--BB earthA · mirthA · green · been · hoarB · moreB
- 4 AABBCC stemA · gemA · headB · treadB · shoreC · moreC
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Have ye left the greenwood lone, | 7 | ····/·· |
| Are your steps for ever gone? | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Fairy King and Elfin Queen, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Come ye to the sylvan scene, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| From your dim and distant shore, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Never more? | 3 | /˘· |
| Shall the pilgrim never hear | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| With a thrill of joy and fear, | 7 | ······· |
| In the hush of moonlight hours, | 8 | ····/·/˘ |
| Voices from the folded flowers, | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| Faint, sweet flute-notes as of yore, | 7 | ······· |
| Never more? | 3 | /˘· |
| “Mortal! ne’er shall bowers of earth | 7 | /˘··/·· |
| Hear again our midnight mirth: | 7 | ·˘///·· |
| By our brooks and dingles green | 7 | ·/··/˘· |
| Since unhallow’d steps have been, | 7 | ······· |
| Ours shall thread the forests hoar | 7 | /···/˘· |
| Never more. | 3 | /˘· |
| “Ne’er on earth-born lily’s stem | 7 | ····/·· |
| Will we hang the dewdrop’s gem; | 7 | ······· |
| Ne’er shall reed or cowslip’s head | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Quiver to our dancing tread, | 7 | /˘·//˘· |
| By sweet fount or murmuring shore-- | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Never more!” | 3 | /˘· |
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.