Song
Good night! Good night, beloved!I come to watch o'er thee!To be near thee,--to be near thee,Alone is peace for me.
Thine eyes are stars of morning,Thy lips are crimson flowers!Good night! Good night beloved,While I count the weary hours.
Ah! thou moon that shinestArgent-clear above!All night long enlightenMy sweet lady-love!Moon that shinest,All night long enlighten!
Words in this poem
- argent n.
- Silver, or money. [F. argent, fr. L. argentum, silver; akin to Gr. rajata white, silver, raj to shine, Ir. arg white, milk, airgiod silver, money, and L. arguere to make clear. Se]
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.html, id L18612.
Form and metre
Song is 14 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.1 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 14% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 -AAA beloved · theeA · theeA · meA
- 2 -A-A morning · flowersA · beloved · hoursA
- 3 ABCBAC shinestA · aboveB · enlightenC · loveB · shinestA · enlightenC
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Good night! Good night, beloved! | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| I come to watch o'er thee! | 6 | ······ |
| To be near thee,--to be near thee, | 8 | ········ |
| Alone is peace for me. | 6 | ˘/···· |
| Thine eyes are stars of morning, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Thy lips are crimson flowers! | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Good night! Good night beloved, | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| While I count the weary hours. | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Ah! thou moon that shinest | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Argent-clear above! | 5 | /˘··· |
| All night long enlighten | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
| My sweet lady-love! | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Moon that shinest, | 4 | ··/˘ |
| All night long enlighten! | 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.