A Persian Love Song
O Love! I know not why, when you are glad,Gaily my glad heart leaps.Love! I know not why, when you are sad,Wildly my sad heart weeps.
I know not why, if sweet be your repose,My waking heart finds rest,Or if your eyes be dim with pain, sharp throesOf anguish rend my breast.
Hourly this subtle mystery flowers anew,O Love, I know not why . . .Unless it be, perchance, that I am you,Dear love, that you are I!
Words in this poem
- gaily adv.
- Merrily; showily. See gaily. [From Gay.]
- hourly a.
- Happening or done every hour; occurring hour by hour; frequent; often repeated; renewed hour by hour; continual.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Persian Love Song 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 Persian Love Song, 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-persian-love-song.html, id L27525.
Form and metre
A Persian Love Song is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 gladA · leapsB · sadA · weepsB
- 2 ABAB reposeA · restB · throesA · breastB
- 3 ABAB anewA · whyB · youA · iB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O Love! I know not why, when you are glad, | 10 | ·········· |
| Gaily my glad heart leaps. | 6 | /˘···· |
| Love! I know not why, when you are sad, | 9 | ········· |
| Wildly my sad heart weeps. | 6 | /˘···· |
| I know not why, if sweet be your repose, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| My waking heart finds rest, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Or if your eyes be dim with pain, sharp throes | 10 | ·········· |
| Of anguish rend my breast. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Hourly this subtle mystery flowers anew, | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘/˘/ |
| O Love, I know not why . . . | 6 | ······ |
| Unless it be, perchance, that I am you, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Dear love, that you are I! | 6 | ······ |
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.