Under the Moon
Under the crescent moon's faint glowThe washerman's bat resounds afar,And the autumn breeze sighs tenderly.But my heart has gone to the Tartar war,To bleak Kansuh and the steppes of snow,Calling my husband back to me.
Words in this poem
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- tenderly adv.
- In a tender manner; with tenderness; mildly; gently; softly; in a manner not to injure or give pain; with pity or affection; kindly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Under the Moon is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Lute of Jade, Project Gutenberg ebook #390, the L. Cranmer-Byng translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, Under the Moon, in A Lute of Jade (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lute-of-jade/under-the-moon.html, id L15582.
Form and metre
Under the Moon is 6 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 A---A- glowA · afar · tenderly · war · snowA · me
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Under the crescent moon's faint glow | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The washerman's bat resounds afar, | 9 | ······/˘/ |
| And the autumn breeze sighs tenderly. | 9 | ··/˘··/˘˘ |
| But my heart has gone to the Tartar war, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| To bleak Kansuh and the steppes of snow, | 9 | ········· |
| Calling my husband back to me. | 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.