The Water Peri’s Song
Farewell, farewell, to my mother’s own daughter,The child that she wet-nursed is lapp’d in the wave;The Mussul-man coming to fish in this water,Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave.
This sack is her coffin, this water’s her bier,This greyish bath cloak is her funeral pall;And, stranger, O stranger! this song that you hearIs her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all!
Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan,My mother’s own daughter--the last of her race--She’s a corpse, the poor body! and lies in this basin,And sleeps in the water that washes her face.
Words in this poem
- bier n.
- A handbarrow or portable frame on which a corpse is placed or borne to the grave. [OE. bæe, beere, AS. b, b; akin to D. baar, OHG. bara, G. bahre, Icel barar, Dbaare, L. feretrum, Gr. , from the same bear to produce. See 1st Bear, and cf. Barr]
- elegy n.
- A mournful or plaintive poem; a funereal song; a poem of lamentation.
- corpse n.
- A human body in general, whether living or dead; -- sometimes contemptuosly. [OF. cors (sometimes written corps), F. corps, L. corpus; akin to AS. hrif womb. See Midriff, and cf. Corse, Corselet, Corps, Cuerpo.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Water Peri’s Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Comic Poems of Thomas Hood A New and Complete Edition, Project Gutenberg ebook #56712; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hood, The Water Peri’s Song, in Poems (1827–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56712, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poems/the-water-peri-s-song.html, id L06874.
Form and metre
The Water Peri’s Song is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 74% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.1 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic 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 ABAB daughterA · waveB · waterA · graveB
- 2 ABAB bierA · pallB · hearA · allB
- 3 ABAB hassanA · raceB · basinA · faceB
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Farewell, farewell, to my mother’s own daughter, | 11 | ·/·/··/˘·/˘ |
| The child that she wet-nursed is lapp’d in the wave; | 11 | ··········· |
| The Mussul-man coming to fish in this water, | 12 | ····/˘····/˘ |
| Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave. | 11 | ··········· |
| This sack is her coffin, this water’s her bier, | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| This greyish bath cloak is her funeral pall; | 9 | ······/˘· |
| And, stranger, O stranger! this song that you hear | 11 | ·/˘·/˘····· |
| Is her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all! | 11 | ··/˘·/˘/˘·· |
| Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan, | 11 | ·/·/·····˘/ |
| My mother’s own daughter--the last of her race-- | 11 | ·/˘·/˘····· |
| She’s a corpse, the poor body! and lies in this basin, | 13 | ·····/˘····/˘ |
| And sleeps in the water that washes her face. | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
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.