Alone
Alone, O Love, I seek the blossoming glades,The bright, accustomed alleys of delight,Pomegranate-gardens of the mellowing dawn,Serene and sumptuous orchards of the night.
Alone, O Love, I breast the shimmering waves,The changing tides of life's familiar streams,Wide seas of hope, swift rivers of desire,The moon-enchanted estuary of dreams.
But no compassionate wind or comforting starBrings me sweet word of thine abiding place . . .In what predestined hour of joy or tearsShall I attain the sanctuary of thy face?
Words in this poem
- shimmering n.
- A gleam or glimmering.
- 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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Alone 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, Alone, in The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring (1912), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-bird-of-time/alone.html, id L27523.
Form and metre
Alone is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 -A-A glades · delightA · dawn · nightA
- 2 -A-A waves · streamsA · desire · dreamsA
- 3 -A-A star · placeA · tears · faceA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Alone, O Love, I seek the blossoming glades, | 10 | ˘/·····/˘· |
| The bright, accustomed alleys of delight, | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Pomegranate-gardens of the mellowing dawn, | 10 | /˘/˘··/˘˘· |
| Serene and sumptuous orchards of the night. | 10 | ˘/·/˘/˘··· |
| Alone, O Love, I breast the shimmering waves, | 10 | ˘/·····/˘· |
| The changing tides of life's familiar streams, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| Wide seas of hope, swift rivers of desire, | 11 | ·····/˘·˘/˘ |
| The moon-enchanted estuary of dreams. | 11 | ··˘/˘/˘·˘·· |
| But no compassionate wind or comforting star | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Brings me sweet word of thine abiding place . . . | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| In what predestined hour of joy or tears | 10 | ···/˘/···· |
| Shall I attain the sanctuary of thy face? | 12 | ··˘/·/˘·˘··· |
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.