Kashmiri Song
Pale hands I love beside the Shalimar,Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far,Before you agonise them in farewell?
Oh, pale dispensers of my Joys and Pains,Holding the doors of Heaven and of Hell,How the hot blood rushed wildly through the veinsBeneath your touch, until you waved farewell.
Pale hands, pink tipped, like Lotus buds that floatOn those cool waters where we used to dwell,I would have rather felt you round my throat,Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!
Words in this poem
- roadway n.
- A road; especially, the part traveled by carriages.
- agonise v. i.
- To writhe with agony; to suffer violent anguish. [F. agoniser, LL. agonizare, fr. Gr. Agony.]
- rushed a.
- Abounding or covered with rushes.
- dwell v. i.
- To delay; to linger. [OE. dwellen, dwelien, to err, linger, AS. dwellan to deceive, hinder, delay, dwelian to err; akin to Icel. dvelja to delay, tarry, Sw. dväljas to dwell, Dan. dv]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Kashmiri Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from India's Love Lyrics, Project Gutenberg ebook #8197; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Laurence Hope, Kashmiri Song, in India's Love Lyrics (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8197, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hope-india/kashmiri-song.html, id L22610.
Form and metre
Kashmiri Song is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 shalimarA · spellB · farA · farewellB
- 2 ABAB painsA · hellB · veinsA · farewellB
- 3 ABAB floatA · dwellB · throatA · farewellB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Pale hands I love beside the Shalimar, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell? | 10 | ·········· |
| Whom do you lead on Rapture's roadway, far, | 10 | ·····/˘/·· |
| Before you agonise them in farewell? | 10 | ···/˘····/ |
| Oh, pale dispensers of my Joys and Pains, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Holding the doors of Heaven and of Hell, | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| How the hot blood rushed wildly through the veins | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Beneath your touch, until you waved farewell. | 10 | ·········/ |
| Pale hands, pink tipped, like Lotus buds that float | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| On those cool waters where we used to dwell, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| I would have rather felt you round my throat, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Crushing out life, than waving me farewell! | 10 | /˘···/˘··/ |
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.