Borderland
Am I waking, am I sleeping?As the first faint dawn comes creepingThro’ the pane, I am awareOf an unseen presence hovering,Round, above, in the dusky air:A downy bird, with an odorous wing,That fans my forehead, and sheds perfume,As sweet as love, as soft as death,Drowsy-slow through the summer-gloom.My heart in some dream-rapture saith,It is she. Half in a swoon,I spread my arms in slow delight.--O prolong, prolong the night,For the nights are short in June!
Words in this poem
- pane n.
- The narrow edge of a hammer head. See Peen. [F. panne.]
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
- saith
- 3d pers. sing. pres. of Say.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Borderland 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, Borderland, in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/borderland.html, id L21540.
Form and metre
Borderland is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
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 AAB-BACDCDEFFE sleepingA · creepingA · awareB · hovering · airB · wingA · perfumeC · deathD · gloomC · saithD · swoonE · delightF · nightF · juneE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Am I waking, am I sleeping? | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| As the first faint dawn comes creeping | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Thro’ the pane, I am aware | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Of an unseen presence hovering, | 9 | ··˘//˘/˘˘ |
| Round, above, in the dusky air: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| A downy bird, with an odorous wing, | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| That fans my forehead, and sheds perfume, | 9 | ···/˘··˘/ |
| As sweet as love, as soft as death, | 8 | ········ |
| Drowsy-slow through the summer-gloom. | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| My heart in some dream-rapture saith, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| It is she. Half in a swoon, | 7 | ······· |
| I spread my arms in slow delight.-- | 8 | ······˘/ |
| O prolong, prolong the night, | 7 | ·˘/˘/·· |
| For the nights are short in June! | 7 | ······· |
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.