The Arrow and the Song
I shot an arrow into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where;For, so swiftly it flew, the sightCould not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where;For who has sight so keen and strong,That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oakI found the arrow, still unbroke;And the song, from beginning to end,I found again in the heart of a friend.
About this text
The Arrow and the 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, The Arrow and the Song, in A Psalm of Life, and Other Poems (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/the-arrow-and-the-song.html, id L17540.
Form and metre
The Arrow and the Song is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.5 syllables. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AABB airA · whereA · sightB · flightB
- 2 AABB airA · whereA · strongB · songB
- 3 AABB oakA · unbrokeA · endB · friendB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I shot an arrow into the air, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| It fell to earth, I knew not where; | 8 | ········ |
| For, so swiftly it flew, the sight | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Could not follow it in its flight. | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| I breathed a song into the air, | 8 | ········ |
| It fell to earth, I knew not where; | 8 | ········ |
| For who has sight so keen and strong, | 8 | ········ |
| That it can follow the flight of song? | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Long, long afterward, in an oak | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| I found the arrow, still unbroke; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And the song, from beginning to end, | 9 | ····˘/˘·· |
| I found again in the heart of a friend. | 10 | ··˘/······ |
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.