A Song in the Night
A brown bird sang on a blossomy tree,Sang in the moonshine, merrily,Three little songs, one, two, and three,A song for his wife, for himself, and me.
He sang for his wife, sang low, sang high,Filling the moonlight that filled the sky;"Thee, thee, I love thee, heart alive!Thee, thee, thee, and thy round eggs five!"
He sang to himself, "What shall I doWith this life that thrills me through and through!Glad is so glad that it turns to ache!Out with it, song, or my heart will break!"
He sang to me, "Man, do not fearThough the moon goes down and the dark is near;Listen my song and rest thine eyes;Let the moon go down that the sun may rise!"
I folded me up in the heart of his tune,And fell asleep with the sinking moon;I woke with the day's first golden gleam,And, lo, I had dreamed a precious dream!
Words in this poem
- blossomy a.
- Full of blossoms; flowery.
- moonshine n.
- The light of the moon.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- ache n.
- A name given to several species of plants; as, smallage, wild celery, parsley. Holland. [F. ache, L. apium parsley.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Song in the Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #9984; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George MacDonald, A Song in the Night, in A Microcosm in Terza Rima, and Other Poems (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9984, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/macdonald-poems/a-song-in-the-night.html, id L22283.
Form and metre
A Song in the Night is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 4 of its 5 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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-AA treeA · merrily · threeA · meA
- 2 AABB highA · skyA · aliveB · fiveB
- 3 AABB doA · throughA · acheB · breakB
- 4 AABB fearA · nearA · eyesB · riseB
- 5 AABB tuneA · moonA · gleamB · dreamB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A brown bird sang on a blossomy tree, | 10 | ······/˘˘· |
| Sang in the moonshine, merrily, | 8 | ···/·/˘˘ |
| Three little songs, one, two, and three, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| A song for his wife, for himself, and me. | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| He sang for his wife, sang low, sang high, | 9 | ········· |
| Filling the moonlight that filled the sky; | 10 | /˘·/···˘·· |
| "Thee, thee, I love thee, heart alive! | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Thee, thee, thee, and thy round eggs five!" | 8 | ········ |
| He sang to himself, "What shall I do | 9 | ···˘/···· |
| With this life that thrills me through and through! | 9 | ········· |
| Glad is so glad that it turns to ache! | 9 | ········· |
| Out with it, song, or my heart will break!" | 9 | ········· |
| He sang to me, "Man, do not fear | 8 | ········ |
| Though the moon goes down and the dark is near; | 10 | ·········· |
| Listen my song and rest thine eyes; | 8 | /˘······ |
| Let the moon go down that the sun may rise!" | 10 | ·········· |
| I folded me up in the heart of his tune, | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| And fell asleep with the sinking moon; | 9 | ··˘/··/˘· |
| I woke with the day's first golden gleam, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| And, lo, I had dreamed a precious dream! | 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.