Song
FAIR and false! No dawn will greetThy waking beauty as of old;The little flower beneath thy feetIs alien to thy smile so cold;The merry bird flown up to meetYoung morning from his nest i’ the wheatScatters his joy to wood and wold,But scorns the arrogance of gold.
False and fair! I scarce know why,But standing in the lonely air,And underneath the blessed sky,I plead for thee in my despair;—For thee cut off, both heart and eyeFrom living truth; thy spring quite dry;For thee, that heaven my thought may share,Forget—how false! and think—how fair!
Words in this poem
- flown a.
- Flushed, inflated.
- wold n.
- A wood; a forest. [OE. wold, wald, AS. weald, wald, a wood, forest; akin to OFries. & OS. wald, D. woud, G. wald, Icel. völlr, a field, and probably to Gr. va a garden, inclosure.]
- scarce a.
- Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. [OE. scars, OF. escars, eschars, LL. scarpsus, for L. excerptus, p. p. of excerpere to pick out, and hence to contract, to shorten; ex (see Ex-) + carpere. See C]
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-3.html, id L18590.
Form and metre
Song is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABAABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 31% 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 ABABAABB greetA · oldB · feetA · coldB · meetA · wheatA · woldB · goldB
- 2 ABABAABB whyA · airB · skyA · despairB · eyeA · dryA · shareB · fairB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| FAIR and false! No dawn will greet | 7 | ······· |
| Thy waking beauty as of old; | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| The little flower beneath thy feet | 9 | ·/˘/˘···· |
| Is alien to thy smile so cold; | 9 | ·/˘˘····· |
| The merry bird flown up to meet | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Young morning from his nest i’ the wheat | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Scatters his joy to wood and wold, | 8 | /˘······ |
| But scorns the arrogance of gold. | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| False and fair! I scarce know why, | 7 | ······· |
| But standing in the lonely air, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And underneath the blessed sky, | 7 | ··˘/··· |
| I plead for thee in my despair;— | 8 | ······˘/ |
| For thee cut off, both heart and eye | 8 | ········ |
| From living truth; thy spring quite dry; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| For thee, that heaven my thought may share, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Forget—how false! and think—how fair! | 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.