A Waltz Song
O sway, and swing, and sway,And swing, and sway, and swing!Ah me, what bliss like unto this,Can days and daylight bring?
A rose beneath your feetHas fallen from my head;Its odour rises sweet,All crushed it lies, and dead.
O Love is like a rose,Fair-hued, of fragrant breath;A tender flow’r that lives an hour,And is most sweet in death.
O swing, and sway, and swing,And rise, and sink, and fall!There is no bliss like unto this,This is the best of all.
Words in this poem
- daylight n.
- The light of day as opposed to the darkness of night; the light of the sun, as opposed to that of the moon or to artificial light.
- odour n.
- Any smell, whether fragrant or offensive; scent; perfume. [OE. odor, odour, OF. odor, odour, F. odeur, fr. L. odor; akin to olere to smell, Gr. Olfactory, Osmium, Ozone, Redolent.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Waltz Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #56974; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Amy Levy, A Waltz Song, in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/a-waltz-song.html, id L21565.
Form and metre
A Waltz Song is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is short measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
See other poems in short measure.
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 -A-A sway · swingA · this · bringA
- 2 ABAB feetA · headB · sweetA · deadB
- 3 -A-A rose · breathA · hour · deathA
- 4 -A-A swing · fallA · this · allA
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 short measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O sway, and swing, and sway, | 6 | ······ |
| And swing, and sway, and swing! | 6 | ······ |
| Ah me, what bliss like unto this, | 8 | ········ |
| Can days and daylight bring? | 6 | ···/·· |
| A rose beneath your feet | 6 | ······ |
| Has fallen from my head; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Its odour rises sweet, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| All crushed it lies, and dead. | 6 | ······ |
| O Love is like a rose, | 6 | ······ |
| Fair-hued, of fragrant breath; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| A tender flow’r that lives an hour, | 8 | ·/˘····/ |
| And is most sweet in death. | 6 | ······ |
| O swing, and sway, and swing, | 6 | ······ |
| And rise, and sink, and fall! | 6 | ······ |
| There is no bliss like unto this, | 8 | ········ |
| This is the best of all. | 6 | ······ |
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.