VII. A Song of Love
"Hey, rose, just bornTwin to a thorn;Was't so with you, O Love and Scorn?
"Sweet eyes that smiled,Now wet and wild;O Eye and Tear -- mother and child.
"Well: Love and PainBe kinsfolk twain:Yet would, Oh would I could love again."
Words in this poem
- kinsfolk n.
- Relatives; kindred; kin; persons of the same family or closely or closely related families.
- twain a.
- Two;- nearly obsolete in common discourse, but used in poetry and burlesque. [OE. twein, tweien, tweyne, AS. twegen, masc. See Two.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
VII. A Song of Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Sidney Lanier, Project Gutenberg ebook #579; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sidney Lanier, VII. A Song of Love, in Poems (1884), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #579, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lanier-poems/vii-a-song-of-love.html, id L07640.
Form and metre
VII. A Song of Love is 9 lines in 3 stanzas of 3 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines. The metre is iambic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.4 syllables. 22% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in iambic dimeter.
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 bornA · thornA · scornA
- 2 AAA smiledA · wildA · childA
- 3 AAA painA · twainA · againA
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 dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| "Hey, rose, just born | 4 | ···· |
| Twin to a thorn; | 4 | ···· |
| Was't so with you, O Love and Scorn? | 8 | ········ |
| "Sweet eyes that smiled, | 4 | ···· |
| Now wet and wild; | 4 | ···· |
| O Eye and Tear -- mother and child. | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| "Well: Love and Pain | 4 | ···· |
| Be kinsfolk twain: | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Yet would, Oh would I could love again." | 9 | ·······˘/ |
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.