The Lover
Now thou art gone, tho' not gone far,It seems that there are worlds between us;Shine here again, thou wandering star!Earth's planet! and return with Venus.
At times thou broughtest me thy lightWhen restless sleep had gone away;At other times more blessed nightStole over, and prolonged thy stay.
Words in this poem
- stole n.
- A long, loose garment reaching to the feet. [AS. stole, L. stola, Gr. stall. See Stall.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Lover is in the public domain. This text is taken from Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, Project Gutenberg ebook #21628; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walter Savage Landor, The Lover, in Imaginary Conversations and Poems (1795–1863), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21628, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/landor-poems/the-lover.html, id L12210.
Form and metre
The Lover is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% 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 farA · usB · starA · venusB
- 2 ABAB lightA · awayB · nightA · stayB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Now thou art gone, tho' not gone far, | 8 | ········ |
| It seems that there are worlds between us; | 9 | ········· |
| Shine here again, thou wandering star! | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Earth's planet! and return with Venus. | 9 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘ |
| At times thou broughtest me thy light | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| When restless sleep had gone away; | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| At other times more blessed night | 8 | ·/˘···˘· |
| Stole over, and prolonged thy stay. | 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.