The Poetry of Keats
THE song of a nightingale sent thro’ a slumbrous valley,Low-lidded with twilight, and tranced with the dolorous sound,Tranced with a tender enchantment; the yearning of passionThat wins immortality even while panting delirious with death.
Words in this poem
- slumbrous a.
- Slumberous. Keats.
- dolorous a.
- Full of grief; sad; sorrowful; doleful; dismal; as, a dolorous object; dolorous discourses. [L. dolorosus, from dolor: cf. F. douloureux. See Dolor.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Poetry of Keats 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, The Poetry of Keats, in Poems, Volume I (1851–1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1381, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/meredith-poems/the-poetry-of-keats.html, id L13138.
Form and metre
The Poetry of Keats is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 14.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| THE song of a nightingale sent thro’ a slumbrous valley, | 13 | ····/˘···/˘/˘ |
| Low-lidded with twilight, and tranced with the dolorous sound, | 14 | ·/˘·/·····/˘˘· |
| Tranced with a tender enchantment; the yearning of passion | 14 | ···/˘˘/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| That wins immortality even while panting delirious with death. | 15 | ···˘/˘/·/˘˘/˘·· |
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.