A Pastoral Song
Come, Anna! come, the morning dawns,Faint streaks of radiance tinge the skies;Come, let us seek the dewy lawns,And watch the early lark arise;While nature, clad in vesture gay,Hails the loved return of day.
Our flocks, that nip the scanty bladeUpon the moor, shall seek the vale;And then, secure beneath the shade,We'll listen to the throstle's tale;And watch the silver clouds above,As o'er the azure vault they rove.
Come, Anna! come, and bring thy lute,That with its tones, so softly sweet,In cadence with my mellow flute,We may beguile the noontide heat;While near the mellow bee shall join,To raise a harmony divine.
And then at eve, when silence reigns,Except when heard the beetle's hum,We'll leave the sober tinted plains,To these sweet heights again we'll come;And thou to thy soft lute shalt playA solemn vesper to departing day.
Words in this poem
- anna n.
- An East Indian money of account, the sixteenth of a rupee, or about 2 [Hindi ana.]
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- 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,]
- vale n.
- A tract of low ground, or of land between hills; a valley. [OE. val, F. val, L. vallis; perhaps akin to Gr. Avalanche, Vail to lower, Valley.]
- noontide n.
- The time of noon; midday. [From noon + tide time; cf. AS. n the ninth hour.]
- shalt
- 2d per. sing. of Shall.
- vesper n.
- The evening star; Hesper; Venus, when seen after sunset; hence, the evening. [L., the evening, the evening star, the west; akin to Gr. west. Cf. Hesperian, Vespers.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Pastoral Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Henry Kirk White : With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas, Project Gutenberg ebook #7149; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Kirke White, A Pastoral Song, in The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White (1803–1806), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7149, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kirke-white-poems/a-pastoral-song.html, id L10139.
Form and metre
A Pastoral Song is 24 lines in 4 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABABCC, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 8% 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 ABABCC dawnsA · skiesB · lawnsA · ariseB · gayC · dayC
- 2 ABAB-- bladeA · valeB · shadeA · taleB · above · rove
- 3 ABAB-- luteA · sweetB · fluteA · heatB · join · divine
- 4 ABABCC reignsA · humB · plainsA · comeB · playC · dayC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Come, Anna! come, the morning dawns, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Faint streaks of radiance tinge the skies; | 9 | ···/˘˘··· |
| Come, let us seek the dewy lawns, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And watch the early lark arise; | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| While nature, clad in vesture gay, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Hails the loved return of day. | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| Our flocks, that nip the scanty blade | 9 | /˘····/˘· |
| Upon the moor, shall seek the vale; | 8 | ········ |
| And then, secure beneath the shade, | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| We'll listen to the throstle's tale; | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| And watch the silver clouds above, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| As o'er the azure vault they rove. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Come, Anna! come, and bring thy lute, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| That with its tones, so softly sweet, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In cadence with my mellow flute, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| We may beguile the noontide heat; | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| While near the mellow bee shall join, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To raise a harmony divine. | 8 | ···/˘˘˘/ |
| And then at eve, when silence reigns, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Except when heard the beetle's hum, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| We'll leave the sober tinted plains, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| To these sweet heights again we'll come; | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| And thou to thy soft lute shalt play | 8 | ········ |
| A solemn vesper to departing day. | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘· |
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.