Song
SHOULD thy love die;O bury it not under ice-blue eyes!And lips that deny,With a scornful surprise,The life it once lived in thy breast when it wore no disguise.
Should thy love die;O bury it where the sweet wild-flowers blow!And breezes go by,With no whisper of woe;And strange feet cannot guess of the anguish that slumbers below.
Should thy love die;O wander once more to the haunt of the bee!Where the foliaged skyIs most sacred to see,And thy being first felt its wild birth like a wind-wakened tree.
Should thy love die;O dissemble it! smile! let the rose hide the thorn!While the lark sings on high,And no thing looks forlorn,Bury it, bury it, bury it where it was born.
Words in this poem
- foliaged a.
- Furnished with foliage; leaved; as, the variously foliaged mulberry.
- dissemble v. t.
- To hide under a false semblance or seeming; to feign (something) not to be what it really is; to put an untrue appearance upon; to disguise; to mask. [OF. dissembler to be dissimilar; pref. dis- (L. dis-) + F. sembler to seem, L. simulare to simulate; cf. L. dissimulare to dissemble. See Simulate, and cf. Diss]
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
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-7.html, id L13190.
Form and metre
Song is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABB. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 5% 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 ABABB dieA · eyesB · denyA · surpriseB · disguiseB
- 2 ABABB dieA · blowB · byA · woeB · belowB
- 3 ABABB dieA · beeB · skyA · seeB · treeB
- 4 ABABB dieA · thornB · highA · forlornB · bornB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| SHOULD thy love die; | 4 | ···· |
| O bury it not under ice-blue eyes! | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And lips that deny, | 5 | ···˘/ |
| With a scornful surprise, | 6 | ··/˘˘/ |
| The life it once lived in thy breast when it wore no disguise. | 14 | ············˘/ |
| Should thy love die; | 4 | ···· |
| O bury it where the sweet wild-flowers blow! | 10 | ·/˘·····/· |
| And breezes go by, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| With no whisper of woe; | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| And strange feet cannot guess of the anguish that slumbers below. | 15 | ···/˘···/˘·/˘·· |
| Should thy love die; | 4 | ···· |
| O wander once more to the haunt of the bee! | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| Where the foliaged sky | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Is most sacred to see, | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| And thy being first felt its wild birth like a wind-wakened tree. | 14 | ··/········/˘· |
| Should thy love die; | 4 | ···· |
| O dissemble it! smile! let the rose hide the thorn! | 12 | ·˘/˘········ |
| While the lark sings on high, | 6 | ······ |
| And no thing looks forlorn, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Bury it, bury it, bury it where it was born. | 13 | /˘·/˘·/˘····· |
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.