Song
THE moon is alone in the skyAs thou in my soul;The sea takes her image to lieWhere the white ripples rollAll night in a dream,With the light of her beam,Hushedly, mournfully, mistily up to the shore.The pebbles speak lowIn the ebb and the flow,As I when thy voice came at intervals, tuned to adore:Nought other stirredSave my heart all unheardBeating to bliss that is past evermore.
Words in this poem
- mistily adv.
- With mist; darkly; obscurely.
- adore v. t.
- To worship with profound reverence; to pay divine honors to; to honor as deity or as divine. [OE. aouren, anouren, adoren, OF. aorer, adorer, F. adorer, fr. L. adorare; ad + orare to speak, pray, os, oris, mouth. In OE. confused with honor, the French pr]
- unheard a.
- Not heard; not perceived by the ear; as, words unheard by those present.
- evermore adv.
- During eternity; always; forever; for an indefinite period; at all times; -- often used substantively with for.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems — Volume 1, Project Gutenberg ebook #1381; 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 Meredith, Song, in Poems, Volume I (1851–1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1381, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/meredith-poems/song-2.html, id L13127.
Form and metre
Song is 13 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCCDEEDFFD. The metre is anapaestic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 46% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic dimeter.
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 ABABCCDEEDFFD skyA · soulB · lieA · rollB · dreamC · beamC · shoreD · lowE · flowE · adoreD · stirredF · unheardF · evermoreD
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 anapaestic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| THE moon is alone in the sky | 8 | ···˘/··· |
| As thou in my soul; | 5 | ····· |
| The sea takes her image to lie | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Where the white ripples roll | 6 | ···/˘· |
| All night in a dream, | 5 | ····· |
| With the light of her beam, | 6 | ······ |
| Hushedly, mournfully, mistily up to the shore. | 13 | ······/˘˘···· |
| The pebbles speak low | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| In the ebb and the flow, | 6 | ······ |
| As I when thy voice came at intervals, tuned to adore: | 13 | ·······/˘··˘/ |
| Nought other stirred | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Save my heart all unheard | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Beating to bliss that is past evermore. | 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.