An Anthem of Love
Two hands are we to serve thee, O our Mother,To strive and succour, cherish and unite;Two feet are we to cleave the waning darkness,And gain the pathways of the dawning light.
Two ears are we to catch the nearing echo,The sounding cheer of Time's prophetic horn;Two eyes are we to reap the crescent glory,The radiant promise of renascent morn.
One heart are we to love thee, O our Mother,One undivided, indivisible soul,Bound by one hope, one purpose, one devotionTowards a great, divinely-destined goal.
Words in this poem
- succour v. t.
- tiono run to, or run to support; hence, to help or relieve when in difficulty, want, or distress; to assist and deliver from suffering; to relieve; as, to succor a besieged city. [OE. socouren, OF. sucurre, soucourre, secorre, F. secourir, L. succurrere, succursum, to run under, run to the aid of, help, succor; sub under + currere to run.]
- waning n.
- The act or process of waning, or decreasing.
- reap n.
- A bundle of grain; a handful of grain laid down by the reaper as it is cut. Wright. [Cf. AS. rip harvest. See Reap, v.]
- renascent a.
- Springing or rising again into being; being born again, or reproduced. [L. renascens, p. pr. of renasci to be born again; pref. re- re- + nasci to be born. See Nascent.]
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
An Anthem of Love 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, An Anthem of Love, in The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring (1912), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-bird-of-time/an-anthem-of-love.html, id L27554.
Form and metre
An Anthem of Love is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 mother · uniteA · darkness · lightA
- 2 -A-A echo · hornA · glory · mornA
- 3 -A-A mother · soulA · devotion · goalA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Two hands are we to serve thee, O our Mother, | 11 | ········//˘ |
| To strive and succour, cherish and unite; | 10 | ···/˘/˘·/· |
| Two feet are we to cleave the waning darkness, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| And gain the pathways of the dawning light. | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
| Two ears are we to catch the nearing echo, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| The sounding cheer of Time's prophetic horn; | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| Two eyes are we to reap the crescent glory, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| The radiant promise of renascent morn. | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| One heart are we to love thee, O our Mother, | 11 | ········//˘ |
| One undivided, indivisible soul, | 10 | ··˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| Bound by one hope, one purpose, one devotion | 11 | ·····/˘·˘/˘ |
| Towards a great, divinely-destined goal. | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘· |
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