Love's Lantern
Because the road was steep and longAnd through a dark and lonely land,God set upon my lips a songAnd put a lantern in my hand.
Through miles on weary miles of nightThat stretch relentless in my wayMy lantern burns serene and white,An unexhausted cup of day.
O golden lights and lights like wine,How dim your boasted splendors are.Behold this little lamp of mine;It is more starlike than a star!
Words in this poem
- relentless a.
- Unmoved by appeals for sympathy or forgiveness; insensible to the distresses of others; destitute of tenderness; unrelenting; unyielding; unpitying; as, a prey to relentless despotism.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love's Lantern is in the public domain. This text is taken from Trees, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #263; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Joyce Kilmer, Love's Lantern, in Trees and Other Poems (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #263, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kilmer-trees/love-s-lantern.html, id L12904.
Form and metre
Love's Lantern is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 33% 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 longA · landB · songA · handB
- 2 ABAB nightA · wayB · whiteA · dayB
- 3 ABAB wineA · areB · mineA · starB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Because the road was steep and long | 8 | ········ |
| And through a dark and lonely land, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| God set upon my lips a song | 8 | ········ |
| And put a lantern in my hand. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Through miles on weary miles of night | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That stretch relentless in my way | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| My lantern burns serene and white, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| An unexhausted cup of day. | 8 | ········ |
| O golden lights and lights like wine, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| How dim your boasted splendors are. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Behold this little lamp of mine; | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| It is more starlike than a star! | 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.