New Love, New Life I
She, who so long has lainStone-stiff with folded wings,Within my heart againThe brown bird wakes and sings.
Brown nightingale, whose strainIs heard by day, by night,She sings of joy and pain,Of sorrow and delight.
About this text
New Love, New Life I 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, New Love, New Life I, in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/new-love-new-life-i.html, id L21532.
Form and metre
New Love, New Life I is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 lainA · wingsB · againA · singsB
- 2 ABAB strainA · nightB · painA · delightB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| She, who so long has lain | 6 | ······ |
| Stone-stiff with folded wings, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Within my heart again | 6 | ····˘/ |
| The brown bird wakes and sings. | 6 | ······ |
| Brown nightingale, whose strain | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| Is heard by day, by night, | 6 | ······ |
| She sings of joy and pain, | 6 | ······ |
| Of sorrow and delight. | 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.