In Lovers' Lane
I know a place for loitering feetDeep in the valley where the breezeMakes melody in lichened boughs,And murmurs low love-litanies.
There slender harebells nod and dream,And pale wild roses offer upThe fragrance of their golden hearts,As from some incense-brimmed cup.
It holds the sunshine sifted downSoftly through many a beechen screen,Save where, by deeper woods embraced,Cool shadows linger, dim and green.
And there my love and I may walkAnd harken to the lapsing fallOf unseen brooks and tender winds,And wooing birds that sweetly call.
And every voice to her will sayWhat I repeat in dear refrain,And eyes will meet with seeking eyes,And hands will clasp in Lovers' Lane.
Come, sweet-heart, then, and we will strayAdown that valley, lingering long,Until the rose is wet with dew,And robins come to evensong,
And woo each other, borrowing speechOf love from winds and brooks and birds,Until our sundered thoughts are oneAnd hearts have no more need of words.
Words in this poem
- lichened a.
- Belonging to, or covered with, lichens.
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
- beechen a.
- Consisting, or made, of the wood or bark of the beech; belonging to the beech. [AS. b.]
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
- adown adv.
- From a higher to a lower situation; downward; down, to or on the ground. [OE. adun, adoun, adune. AS. of dune off the hill. See Down.]
- evensong n.
- A song for the evening; the evening service or form of worship (in the Church of England including vespers and compline); also, the time of evensong. Wyclif. [AS. æfensang.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
In Lovers' Lane is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Watchman and Other Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917; Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1916), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: L. M. Montgomery, In Lovers' Lane, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/in-lovers-lane.html, id L29397.
Form and metre
In Lovers' Lane is 28 lines in 7 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 -AAA feet · breezeA · boughsA · litaniesA
- 2 -A-A dream · upA · hearts · cupA
- 3 -A-A down · screenA · embraced · greenA
- 4 -A-A walk · fallA · winds · callA
- 5 -A-A say · refrainA · eyes · laneA
- 6 -A-A stray · longA · dew · evensongA
- 7 -A-A speech · birdsA · one · wordsA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I know a place for loitering feet | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Deep in the valley where the breeze | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Makes melody in lichened boughs, | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| And murmurs low love-litanies. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| There slender harebells nod and dream, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| And pale wild roses offer up | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The fragrance of their golden hearts, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| As from some incense-brimmed cup. | 8 | ···/··˘· |
| It holds the sunshine sifted down | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| Softly through many a beechen screen, | 8 | /˘·/·/˘· |
| Save where, by deeper woods embraced, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Cool shadows linger, dim and green. | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| And there my love and I may walk | 8 | ········ |
| And harken to the lapsing fall | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Of unseen brooks and tender winds, | 8 | ·˘/··/˘· |
| And wooing birds that sweetly call. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And every voice to her will say | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| What I repeat in dear refrain, | 8 | ··˘/··˘/ |
| And eyes will meet with seeking eyes, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And hands will clasp in Lovers' Lane. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Come, sweet-heart, then, and we will stray | 8 | ········ |
| Adown that valley, lingering long, | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| Until the rose is wet with dew, | 8 | ········ |
| And robins come to evensong, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| And woo each other, borrowing speech | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Of love from winds and brooks and birds, | 8 | ········ |
| Until our sundered thoughts are one | 8 | ··//˘··· |
| And hearts have no more need of words. | 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.