A Love Song from the North
Tell me no more of thy love, papeeha,Wouldst thou recall to my heart, papeeha,Dreams of delight that are gone,When swift to my side came the feet of my loverWith stars of the dusk and the dawn?I see the soft wings of the clouds on the river,And jewelled with raindrops the mango-leaves quiver,And tender boughs flower on the plain. . . .But what is their beauty to me, papeeha,Beauty of blossom and shower, papeeha,That brings not my lover again?
Tell me no more of thy love, papeeha,Wouldst thou revive in my heart, papeeha,Grief for the joy that is gone?I hear the bright peacock in glimmering woodlandsCry to its mate in the dawn;I hear the black koel's slow, tremulous wooing,And sweet in the gardens the calling and cooingOf passionate bulbul and dove. . . .But what is their music to me, papeeha,Songs of their laughter and love, papeeha,To me, forsaken of love?
Words in this poem
- bulbul n.
- The Persian nightingale (Pycnonotus jocosus). The name is also applied to several other Asiatic singing birds, of the family Timaliidæ. The green bulbuls belong to the Chloropsis and allied genera. [Per.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Love Song from the North is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring (London: William Heinemann; New York: John Lane Company, 1912), Wikisource; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sarojini Naidu, A Love Song from the North, in The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring (1912), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-bird-of-time/a-love-song-from-the-north.html, id L27521.
Form and metre
A Love Song from the North is 22 lines in 2 stanzas of 11 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AAB-BCCDAAD papeehaA · papeehaA · goneB · lover · dawnB · riverC · quiverC · plainD · papeehaA · papeehaA · againD
- 2 AAB-BCCDAAD papeehaA · papeehaA · goneB · woodlands · dawnB · wooingC · cooingC · doveD · papeehaA · papeehaA · loveD
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Tell me no more of thy love, papeeha, | 10 | ·········· |
| Wouldst thou recall to my heart, papeeha, | 10 | ··/······· |
| Dreams of delight that are gone, | 7 | ··˘/··· |
| When swift to my side came the feet of my lover | 12 | ··········/˘ |
| With stars of the dusk and the dawn? | 8 | ········ |
| I see the soft wings of the clouds on the river, | 12 | ··········/˘ |
| And jewelled with raindrops the mango-leaves quiver, | 12 | ·/˘·/··/˘·/˘ |
| And tender boughs flower on the plain. . . . | 9 | ·/˘·/˘··· |
| But what is their beauty to me, papeeha, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| Beauty of blossom and shower, papeeha, | 10 | /˘·/˘·/··· |
| That brings not my lover again? | 8 | ····/˘˘/ |
| Tell me no more of thy love, papeeha, | 10 | ·········· |
| Wouldst thou revive in my heart, papeeha, | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Grief for the joy that is gone? | 7 | ······· |
| I hear the bright peacock in glimmering woodlands | 11 | ····/··/˘/˘ |
| Cry to its mate in the dawn; | 7 | ······· |
| I hear the black koel's slow, tremulous wooing, | 11 | ······/˘˘/˘ |
| And sweet in the gardens the calling and cooing | 12 | ····/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| Of passionate bulbul and dove. . . . | 8 | ·/˘˘/˘·· |
| But what is their music to me, papeeha, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| Songs of their laughter and love, papeeha, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| To me, forsaken of love? | 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.