My Secret
My soul its secret has, my life too has its mystery,A love eternal in a moment's space conceived;Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its history,And she who was the cause nor knew it nor believed.Alas! I shall have passed close by her unperceived,Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely,I shall unto the end have made life's journey, onlyDaring to ask for naught, and having naught received.For her, though God has made her gentle and endearing,She will go on her way distraught and without hearingThese murmurings of love that round her steps ascend,Piously faithful still unto her austere duty,Will say, when she shall read these lines full of her beauty,"Who can this woman be?" and will not comprehend.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- endearing a.
- Making dear or beloved; causing love.
- distraught p. p.
- Torn asunder; separated. [OE. distract, distrauht. See Distract, a.]
- piously adv.
- In a pious manner.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
My Secret is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Project Gutenberg ebook #1365; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, My Secret, in A Psalm of Life, and Other Poems (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/my-secret.html, id L26189.
Form and metre
My Secret is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABBCCBDDEFFE. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABABBCCBDDEFFE mysteryA · conceivedB · historyA · believedB · unperceivedB · lonelyC · onlyC · receivedB · endearingD · hearingD · ascendE · dutyF · beautyF · comprehendE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My soul its secret has, my life too has its mystery, | 13 | ···/˘······/˘ |
| A love eternal in a moment's space conceived; | 12 | ··˘/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its history, | 13 | /˘·/······/˘˘ |
| And she who was the cause nor knew it nor believed. | 12 | ··········˘/ |
| Alas! I shall have passed close by her unperceived, | 12 | ˘/·········· |
| Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely, | 13 | ˘/˘·····˘/˘/˘ |
| I shall unto the end have made life's journey, only | 13 | ·········/˘/˘ |
| Daring to ask for naught, and having naught received. | 12 | /˘·····/˘·˘/ |
| For her, though God has made her gentle and endearing, | 13 | ·······/˘·˘/˘ |
| She will go on her way distraught and without hearing | 13 | ······˘/···/˘ |
| These murmurings of love that round her steps ascend, | 12 | ·/˘˘······˘/ |
| Piously faithful still unto her austere duty, | 13 | /˘˘/˘····˘//˘ |
| Will say, when she shall read these lines full of her beauty, | 13 | ···········/˘ |
| "Who can this woman be?" and will not comprehend. | 12 | ···/˘·····˘/ |
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.