Till I Wake
When I am dying, lean over me tenderly, softly,Stoop, as the yellow roses droop in the wind from the South.So I may, when I wake, if there be an Awakening,Keep, what lulled me to sleep, the touch of your lips on my mouth.
Words in this poem
- tenderly adv.
- In a tender manner; with tenderness; mildly; gently; softly; in a manner not to injure or give pain; with pity or affection; kindly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Till I Wake 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, Till I Wake, in India's Love Lyrics (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8197, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hope-india/till-i-wake.html, id L22623.
Form and metre
Till I Wake is 4 lines in a single stanza. 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 -A-A softly · southA · awakening · mouthA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When I am dying, lean over me tenderly, softly, | 12 | ···/˘···/˘/˘ |
| Stoop, as the yellow roses droop in the wind from the South. | 14 | ···/˘/˘······· |
| So I may, when I wake, if there be an Awakening, | 13 | ··········˘/˘ |
| Keep, what lulled me to sleep, the touch of your lips on my mouth. | 14 | ·············· |
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.