Starlight
O beautiful Stars, when you see me goHither and thither, in search of love,Do you think me faithless, who gleam and glowSerene and fixed in the blue above?O Stars, so golden, it is not so.
But there is a garden I dare not see,There is a place where I fear to go,Since the charm and glory of life to meThe brown earth covered there, long ago.O Stars, you saw it, you know, you know.
Hither and thither I wandering go,With aimless haste and wearying fret;In a search for pleasure and love? Not so,Seeking desperately to forget.You see so many, O Stars, you know.
Words in this poem
- aimless a.
- Without aim or purpose; as, an aimless life.
- desperately adv.
- In a desperate manner; without regard to danger or safety; recklessly; extremely; as, the troops fought desperately.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Starlight 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, Starlight, in India's Love Lyrics (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8197, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hope-india/starlight.html, id L22637.
Form and metre
Starlight is 15 lines in 3 stanzas of 5 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABABA, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 ABABA goA · loveB · glowA · aboveB · soA
- 2 ABABB seeA · goB · meA · agoB · knowB
- 3 ABABA goA · fretB · soA · forgetB · knowA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O beautiful Stars, when you see me go | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Hither and thither, in search of love, | 9 | /˘·/˘···· |
| Do you think me faithless, who gleam and glow | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| Serene and fixed in the blue above? | 9 | ˘/······· |
| O Stars, so golden, it is not so. | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| But there is a garden I dare not see, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| There is a place where I fear to go, | 9 | ········· |
| Since the charm and glory of life to me | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| The brown earth covered there, long ago. | 9 | ···/˘··˘/ |
| O Stars, you saw it, you know, you know. | 9 | ········· |
| Hither and thither I wandering go, | 9 | /˘·/˘·/˘· |
| With aimless haste and wearying fret; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| In a search for pleasure and love? Not so, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| Seeking desperately to forget. | 8 | /˘/˘˘·˘/ |
| You see so many, O Stars, you know. | 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.