Spring Song
Hark, I hear a robin calling!List, the wind is from the south!And the orchard-bloom is fallingSweet as kisses on the mouth.
In the dreamy vale of beechesFair and faint is woven mist,And the river's orient reachesAre the palest amethyst.
Every limpid brook is singingOf the lure of April days;Every piney glen is ringingWith the maddest roundelays.
Come and let us seek togetherSpringtime lore of daffodils,Giving to the golden weatherGreeting on the sun-warm hills.
Ours shall be the moonrise stealingThrough the birches ivory-white;Ours shall be the mystic healingOf the velvet-footed night.
Ours shall be the gypsy windingOf the path with violets blue,Ours at last the wizard findingOf the land where dreams come true.
Words in this poem
- dreamy a.
- Abounding in dreams or given to dreaming; appropriate to, or like, dreams; visionary.
- vale n.
- A tract of low ground, or of land between hills; a valley. [OE. val, F. val, L. vallis; perhaps akin to Gr. Avalanche, Vail to lower, Valley.]
- amethyst
- A variety of crystallized quartz, of a purple or bluish violet color, of different shades. It is much used as a jeweler's stone. [F. ametiste, amatiste, F. améthyste, L. amethystus, fr. Gr. Mead.]
- springtime n.
- The season of spring; springtide.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- moonrise n.
- The rising of the moon above the horizon; also, the time of its rising.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Spring Song 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, Spring Song, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/spring-song.html, id L29384.
Form and metre
Spring Song is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABAB callingA · southB · fallingA · mouthB
- 2 ABAB beechesA · mistB · reachesA · amethystB
- 3 ABAB singingA · daysB · ringingA · roundelaysB
- 4 ABAB togetherA · daffodilsB · weatherA · hillsB
- 5 ABAB stealingA · whiteB · healingA · nightB
- 6 ABAB windingA · blueB · findingA · trueB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Hark, I hear a robin calling! | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| List, the wind is from the south! | 7 | ······· |
| And the orchard-bloom is falling | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Sweet as kisses on the mouth. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| In the dreamy vale of beeches | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Fair and faint is woven mist, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And the river's orient reaches | 9 | ··/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Are the palest amethyst. | 7 | ··/˘/˘˘ |
| Every limpid brook is singing | 9 | /˘˘/˘··/˘ |
| Of the lure of April days; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Every piney glen is ringing | 9 | /˘˘/˘··/˘ |
| With the maddest roundelays. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Come and let us seek together | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Springtime lore of daffodils, | 7 | /···/˘· |
| Giving to the golden weather | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| Greeting on the sun-warm hills. | 7 | /˘····· |
| Ours shall be the moonrise stealing | 9 | /˘···/˘/˘ |
| Through the birches ivory-white; | 8 | ··/˘/˘˘· |
| Ours shall be the mystic healing | 9 | /˘···/˘/˘ |
| Of the velvet-footed night. | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Ours shall be the gypsy winding | 9 | /˘···/˘/˘ |
| Of the path with violets blue, | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Ours at last the wizard finding | 9 | /˘···/˘/˘ |
| Of the land where dreams come true. | 7 | ······· |
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.