Song
Ah, Love!Perjured, false, treacherous Love!EnemyOf all that mankind may not rue!Most untrueTo him who keeps most faith with thee.Woe is me!The falcon has the eyes of the dove.Ah, Love!Perjured, false, treacherous Love!
Words in this poem
- perjured a.
- Guilty of perjury; having sworn falsely; forsworn.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song 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, Song, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/song-2.html, id L18613.
Form and metre
Song is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 60% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AA-BBCCAAA loveA · loveA · enemy · rueB · untrueB · theeC · meC · doveA · loveA · loveA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ah, Love! | 2 | ·· |
| Perjured, false, treacherous Love! | 8 | /˘˘·/˘˘· |
| Enemy | 3 | /˘˘ |
| Of all that mankind may not rue! | 8 | ···//··· |
| Most untrue | 3 | ·˘/ |
| To him who keeps most faith with thee. | 8 | ········ |
| Woe is me! | 3 | ··· |
| The falcon has the eyes of the dove. | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Ah, Love! | 2 | ·· |
| Perjured, false, treacherous Love! | 8 | /˘˘·/˘˘· |
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.