I Hear the Stars Still Singing
I hear the stars still singingTo the beautiful, silent night,As they speed with noiseless wingingTheir ever westward flight.I hear the waves still fallingOn the stretch of lonely shore,But the sound of a sweet voice callingI shall hear, alas! no more.
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
I Hear the Stars Still Singing is in the public domain. This text is taken from Fifty Years, & Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #17884; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: James Weldon Johnson, I Hear the Stars Still Singing, in Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17884, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-fifty-years/i-hear-the-stars-still-singing.html, id L08304.
Form and metre
I Hear the Stars Still Singing is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABAB-C-C singingA · nightB · wingingA · flightB · falling · shoreC · calling · moreC
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I hear the stars still singing | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| To the beautiful, silent night, | 8 | ··/˘˘/˘· |
| As they speed with noiseless winging | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Their ever westward flight. | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| I hear the waves still falling | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| On the stretch of lonely shore, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| But the sound of a sweet voice calling | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| I shall hear, alas! no more. | 7 | ···˘/·· |
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.