Lines
Let us make a leap, my dear,In our love, of many a year,And date it very far away,On a bright clear summer day,When the heart was like a sunTo itself, and falsehood none;And the rosy lips a partOf the very loving heart,And the shining of the eyeBut a sign to know it by;--When my faults were all forgiven,And my life deserved of Heaven.Dearest, let us reckon so,And love for all that long ago;Each absence count a year complete,And keep a birthday when we meet.
About this text
Lines is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood, Project Gutenberg ebook #15652; 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, Lines, in The Song of the Shirt, and Other Poems (1826–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15652, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poetical-works/lines.html, id L20068.
Form and metre
Lines is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 88% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AABBCCDDEE--FFGG dearA · yearA · awayB · dayB · sunC · noneC · partD · heartD · eyeE · byE · forgiven · heaven · soF · agoF · completeG · meetG
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Let us make a leap, my dear, | 7 | ······· |
| In our love, of many a year, | 7 | ·/··/·· |
| And date it very far away, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| On a bright clear summer day, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| When the heart was like a sun | 7 | ······· |
| To itself, and falsehood none; | 7 | ·˘/·/·· |
| And the rosy lips a part | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Of the very loving heart, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| And the shining of the eye | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| But a sign to know it by;-- | 7 | ······· |
| When my faults were all forgiven, | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| And my life deserved of Heaven. | 8 | ···˘/·/˘ |
| Dearest, let us reckon so, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| And love for all that long ago; | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Each absence count a year complete, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| And keep a birthday when we meet. | 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.