Mother! Oh, Sing Me to Rest: A Cancion
Mother! oh, sing me to restAs in my bright days departed:Sing to thy child, the sick-hearted,Songs for a spirit oppress’d.
Lay this tired head on thy breast!Flowers from the night-dew are closing,Pilgrims and mourners reposing:Mother! oh, sing me to rest!
Take back thy bird to its nest!Weary is young life when blighted,Heavy this love unrequited;--Mother, oh! sing me to rest!
About this text
Mother! Oh, Sing Me to Rest: A Cancion 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, Mother! Oh, Sing Me to Rest: A Cancion, in Poems (1808–1835), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66785, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemans-poems/mother-oh-sing-me-to-rest-a-cancion.html, id L19636.
Form and metre
Mother! Oh, Sing Me to Rest: A Cancion is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is dactylic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in dactylic trimeter.
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 ABBA restA · departedB · heartedB · oppress'dA
- 2 ABBA breastA · closingB · reposingB · restA
- 3 ABBA nestA · blightedB · unrequitedB · restA
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 dactylic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Mother! oh, sing me to rest | 7 | /˘····· |
| As in my bright days departed: | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Sing to thy child, the sick-hearted, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Songs for a spirit oppress’d. | 7 | ···/˘˘/ |
| Lay this tired head on thy breast! | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Flowers from the night-dew are closing, | 9 | /˘·····/˘ |
| Pilgrims and mourners reposing: | 8 | /˘·/˘/·˘ |
| Mother! oh, sing me to rest! | 7 | /˘····· |
| Take back thy bird to its nest! | 7 | ······· |
| Weary is young life when blighted, | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| Heavy this love unrequited; | 8 | /˘···˘/˘ |
| --Mother, oh! sing me to rest! | 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.