How Can That Love So Deep, So Lone
How can that love so deep, so lone,So faithful unto death,Thus fitfully in laughing tone,In airy word, find breath?
Nay! ask how on the dark wave’s breast,The lily’s cup may gleam,Though many a mournful secret restLow in the unfathom’d stream.
That stream is like my hidden love,In its deep current’s power;And like the play of words above,That lily’s trembling flower.
Words in this poem
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
How Can That Love So Deep, So Lone 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, How Can That Love So Deep, So Lone, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/how-can-that-love-so-deep-so-lone.html, id L19700.
Form and metre
How Can That Love So Deep, So Lone is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 ABAB loneA · deathB · toneA · breathB
- 2 ABAB breastA · gleamB · restA · streamB
- 3 ABAB loveA · powerB · aboveA · flowerB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| How can that love so deep, so lone, | 8 | ········ |
| So faithful unto death, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Thus fitfully in laughing tone, | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| In airy word, find breath? | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Nay! ask how on the dark wave’s breast, | 8 | ········ |
| The lily’s cup may gleam, | 6 | ·/···· |
| Though many a mournful secret rest | 8 | ·/·/˘/˘· |
| Low in the unfathom’d stream. | 7 | ······· |
| That stream is like my hidden love, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In its deep current’s power; | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| And like the play of words above, | 8 | ········ |
| That lily’s trembling flower. | 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.