Serenade
Ah, sweet, thou little knowest howI wake and passionate watches keep;And yet while I address thee now,Methinks thou smilest in thy sleep.'Tis sweet enough to make me weep,That tender thought of love and thee,That while the world is hush'd so deep,Thy soul's perhaps awake to me!
Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bride of sleep!With golden visions of thy dower,While I this midnight vigil keep,And bless thee in thy silent bower;To me 'tis sweeter than the powerOf sleep, and fairy dreams unfurl'd,That I alone, at this still hour,In patient love outwatch the world.
Words in this poem
- methinks v.
- It seems to me; I think. See Me. [AS. þyncan to seem, me þynceedh, me þuhte, OE. me thinketh, me thoughte; akin to G. dünken to seem, denken to think, and E. think. See Me, and Think.]
- vigil n.
- Abstinence from sleep, whether at a time when sleep is customary or not; the act of keeping awake, or the state of being awake, or the state of being awake; sleeplessness; wakefulness; watch. [OE. vigile, L. vigilia, from vigil awake, watchful, probably akin to E. wake: cf. F. vigile. See Wake, v. i., and cf. Reveille, Surveillance, Vedette, Vegetable]
- outwatch v. t.
- To exceed in watching.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Serenade 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, Serenade, 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/serenade.html, id L20062.
Form and metre
Serenade is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See 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 ABABBCBC howA · keepB · nowA · sleepB · weepB · theeC · deepB · meC
- 2 ABACCDBD sleepA · dowerB · keepA · bowerC · powerC · unfurl'dD · hourB · worldD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| I wake and passionate watches keep; | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And yet while I address thee now, | 8 | ····/··· |
| Methinks thou smilest in thy sleep. | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| 'Tis sweet enough to make me weep, | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| That tender thought of love and thee, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| That while the world is hush'd so deep, | 8 | ········ |
| Thy soul's perhaps awake to me! | 8 | ··˘/˘/·· |
| Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bride of sleep! | 8 | ········ |
| With golden visions of thy dower, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| While I this midnight vigil keep, | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| And bless thee in thy silent bower; | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| To me 'tis sweeter than the power | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Of sleep, and fairy dreams unfurl'd, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| That I alone, at this still hour, | 9 | ··˘/···/˘ |
| In patient love outwatch the world. | 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.