Song by Gulbaz
"Is it safe to lie so lonely when the summer twilight closesNo companion maidens, only you asleep among the roses?
"Thirteen, fourteen years you number, and your hair is soft and scented,Perilous is such a slumber in the twilight all untented.
"Lonely loveliness means danger, lying in your rose-leaf nest,What if some young passing stranger broke into your careless rest?"
But she would not heed the warning, lay alone serene and slight,Till the rosy spears of morning slew the darkness of the night.
Young love, walking softly, found her, in the scented, shady closes,Threw his ardent arms around her, kissed her lips beneath the roses.
And she said, with smiles and blushes, "Would that I had sooner known!Never now the morning thrushes wake and find me all alone.
"Since you said the rose-leaf cover sweet protection gave, but slight,I have found this dear young lover to protect me through the night!"
Words in this poem
- untented a.
- Having no tent or tents, as a soldier or a field. [Pref. un- not + tent a covering.]
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song by Gulbaz 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, Song by Gulbaz, in India's Love Lyrics (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8197, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hope-india/song-by-gulbaz.html, id L22609.
Form and metre
Song by Gulbaz is 14 lines in 7 stanzas of 2 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 86% of the lines. The metre is trochaic octameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic octameter.
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 AA closesA · rosesA
- 3 AA nestA · restA
- 4 AA slightA · nightA
- 5 AA closesA · rosesA
- 6 AA knownA · aloneA
- 7 AA slightA · nightA
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 trochaic octameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| "Is it safe to lie so lonely when the summer twilight closes | 16 | ······/˘··/˘/·/˘ |
| No companion maidens, only you asleep among the roses? | 16 | ·˘/˘/˘/˘·˘/···/˘ |
| "Thirteen, fourteen years you number, and your hair is soft and scented, | 16 | ////··/˘······/˘ |
| Perilous is such a slumber in the twilight all untented. | 16 | /˘˘···/˘··/··˘/˘ |
| "Lonely loveliness means danger, lying in your rose-leaf nest, | 15 | /˘/˘˘·/˘/˘····· |
| What if some young passing stranger broke into your careless rest?" | 15 | ····/˘/˘····/˘· |
| But she would not heed the warning, lay alone serene and slight, | 15 | ······/˘·˘/˘/·· |
| Till the rosy spears of morning slew the darkness of the night. | 15 | ··/˘··/˘··/˘··· |
| Young love, walking softly, found her, in the scented, shady closes, | 16 | ··/˘/˘····/˘/˘/˘ |
| Threw his ardent arms around her, kissed her lips beneath the roses. | 16 | ··/˘··········/˘ |
| And she said, with smiles and blushes, "Would that I had sooner known! | 15 | ······/˘····/˘· |
| Never now the morning thrushes wake and find me all alone. | 15 | /˘··/˘/˘·····˘/ |
| "Since you said the rose-leaf cover sweet protection gave, but slight, | 15 | ······/˘·˘/˘··· |
| I have found this dear young lover to protect me through the night!" | 15 | ······/˘·˘/···· |
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.