Silent Love
Who love would seek,Let him love evermoreAnd seldom speak;For in love's domainSilence must reign;Or it brings the heartSmartAnd pain.
Words in this poem
- evermore adv.
- During eternity; always; forever; for an indefinite period; at all times; -- often used substantively with for.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Silent Love 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, Silent Love, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/silent-love.html, id L18064.
Form and metre
Silent Love is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 3.9 syllables. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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-ABBCCB seekA · evermore · speakA · domainB · reignB · heartC · smartC · painB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Who love would seek, | 4 | ···· |
| Let him love evermore | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And seldom speak; | 4 | ·/˘· |
| For in love's domain | 5 | ···˘/ |
| Silence must reign; | 4 | /˘·· |
| Or it brings the heart | 5 | ····· |
| Smart | 1 | · |
| And pain. | 2 | ·· |
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.