The spring, my dear
THE spring, my dear,Is no longer spring.Does the blackbird singWhat he sang last year?Are the skies the oldImmemorial blue?Or am I, or are you,Grown cold?
Though life be change,It is hard to bearWhen the old sweet airSounds forced and strange.To be out of tune,Plain You and I . . .It were better to die,And soon!
Words in this poem
- immemorial a.
- Extending beyond the reach of memory, record, or tradition; indefinitely ancient; as, existing from time immemorial. [Pref. im- not + memorial: cf. F. immémorial.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The spring, my dear is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #1568; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: W. E. Henley, The spring, my dear, in Poems (1898), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1568, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/henley-poems/the-spring-my-dear.html, id L12423.
Form and metre
The spring, my dear is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBACDDC. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 4.6 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 ABBACDDC dearA · springB · singB · yearA · oldC · blueD · youD · coldC
- 2 ABBACDDC changeA · bearB · airB · strangeA · tuneC · iD · dieD · soonC
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| THE spring, my dear, | 4 | ···· |
| Is no longer spring. | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Does the blackbird sing | 5 | ··/˘· |
| What he sang last year? | 5 | ····· |
| Are the skies the old | 5 | ····· |
| Immemorial blue? | 5 | ·˘/˘· |
| Or am I, or are you, | 6 | ······ |
| Grown cold? | 2 | ·· |
| Though life be change, | 4 | ···· |
| It is hard to bear | 5 | ····· |
| When the old sweet air | 5 | ····· |
| Sounds forced and strange. | 5 | ··˘·· |
| To be out of tune, | 5 | ····· |
| Plain You and I . . . | 4 | ···· |
| It were better to die, | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| And soon! | 2 | ·· |
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.