Song of Faiz Ulla
Just at the time when Jasmins bloom, most sweetly in the summer weather,Lost in the scented Jungle gloom, one sultry night we spent togetherWe, Love and Night, together blent, a Trinity of tranced content.
Yet, while your lips were wholly mine, to kiss, to drink from, to caress,We heard some far-off faint distress; harsh drop of poison in sweet wineLessening the fulness of delight,--Some quivering note of human pain,Which rose and fell and rose again, in plaintive sobs throughout the night,
Spoiling the perfumed, moonless hoursWe spent among the Jasmin flowers.
Words in this poem
- jungle n.
- A dense growth of brushwood, grasses, reeds, vines, etc.; an almost impenetrable thicket of trees, canes, and reedy vegetation, as in India, Africa, Australia, and Brazil. [Hind. jangal desert, forest, jungle; Skr. ja desert.]
- blent p. p.
- Blinded. Also (Chaucer), 3d sing. pres. Blindeth.
- caress n.
- An act of endearment; any act or expression of affection; an embracing, or touching, with tenderness. [F. caresse, It. carezza, LL. caritia dearness, fr. L. carus dear. See Charity.]
- moonless a.
- Being without a moon or moonlight.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song of Faiz Ulla 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 of Faiz Ulla, in India's Love Lyrics (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8197, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hope-india/song-of-faiz-ulla.html, id L22602.
Form and metre
Song of Faiz Ulla is 10 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic octameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in iambic 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- weatherA · togetherA · content
- 2 --A-A caress · wine · delightA · pain · nightA
- 3 AA hoursA · flowersA
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 octameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Just at the time when Jasmins bloom, most sweetly in the summer weather, | 17 | ·····/˘··/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Lost in the scented Jungle gloom, one sultry night we spent together | 17 | ···/˘/˘··/˘···˘/˘ |
| We, Love and Night, together blent, a Trinity of tranced content. | 16 | ····˘/˘··/˘˘··˘/ |
| Yet, while your lips were wholly mine, to kiss, to drink from, to caress, | 16 | ·····/˘·······˘/ |
| We heard some far-off faint distress; harsh drop of poison in sweet wine | 16 | ······˘/···/˘··· |
| Lessening the fulness of delight,-- | 9 | /˘˘·/˘·˘/ |
| Some quivering note of human pain, | 9 | ·/˘˘··/˘· |
| Which rose and fell and rose again, in plaintive sobs throughout the night, | 16 | ······˘/·/˘····· |
| Spoiling the perfumed, moonless hours | 9 | /˘·˘//˘/˘ |
| We spent among the Jasmin flowers. | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
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.