Guitar Song
How shall we flee sorrow--flee sorrow? said he.How, how! How shall we flee sorrow--flee sorrow? said he.How--how--how? answered she.
How shall we see pleasure--see pleasure? said he.How, how! How shall we see pleasure--see pleasure? said he.Dream--dream--dream! answered she.
How shall we be happy--be happy? said he.How, how! How shall we be happy--be happy? said he.Love--love--love! whispered she.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Guitar Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, the various hands translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Victor Hugo, Guitar Song, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/guitar-song.html, id L26785.
Form and metre
Guitar Song is 9 lines in 3 stanzas of 3 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AAA heA · heA · sheA
- 2 AAA heA · heA · sheA
- 3 AAA heA · heA · sheA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| How shall we flee sorrow--flee sorrow? said he. | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| How, how! How shall we flee sorrow--flee sorrow? said he. | 13 | ······/˘·/˘·· |
| How--how--how? answered she. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| How shall we see pleasure--see pleasure? said he. | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| How, how! How shall we see pleasure--see pleasure? said he. | 13 | ······/˘·/˘·· |
| Dream--dream--dream! answered she. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| How shall we be happy--be happy? said he. | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| How, how! How shall we be happy--be happy? said he. | 13 | ······/˘·/˘·· |
| Love--love--love! whispered she. | 6 | ···/˘· |
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.