Ecstasy
Heart, O my heart! lo, the springtime is wakingIn meadow and grove.Lo, the mellifluous koels are makingTheir paeans of love.Behold the bright rivers and rills in their glancing,Melodious flight,Behold how the sumptuous peacocks are dancingIn rhythmic delight.
Shall we in the midst of life's exquisite chorusRemember our grief,O heart, when the rapturous season is o'er usOf blossom and leaf?Their joy from the birds and the streams let us borrow,O heart! let us sing,The years are before us for weeping and sorrow . . .To-day it is spring!
Words in this poem
- springtime n.
- The season of spring; springtide.
- mellifluous a.
- Flowing as with honey; smooth; flowing sweetly or smoothly; as, a mellifluous voice. [L. mellifluus; mel, mellis, honey (akin to Gr. milip) + fluere to flow. See Mildew, Fluent, and cf. Marmalade.]
- glancing a.
- Shooting, as light.
- rhythmic a.
- Pertaining to, or of the nature of, rhythm DAy and night I worked my rhythmic thought. Mrs. Browning. [Gr. rhythmicus, F. rhythmique.]
- 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,]
- borrow v. t.
- To receive from another as a loan, with the implied or expressed intention of returning the identical article or its equivalent in kind; -- the opposite of lend. [OE. borwen, AS. borgian, fr. borg, borh, pledge; akin to D. borg, G. borg; prob. fr. root of AS. beorgan to protect. Borough.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Ecstasy 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, Ecstasy, in The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring (1912), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-bird-of-time/ecstasy.html, id L27536.
Form and metre
Ecstasy is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 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 A-A-BCBC wakingA · grove · makingA · love · glancingB · flightC · dancingB · delightC
- 2 ABAB-C-C chorusA · griefB · usA · leafB · borrow · singC · sorrow · springC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Heart, O my heart! lo, the springtime is waking | 11 | ······/··/˘ |
| In meadow and grove. | 5 | ·/··· |
| Lo, the mellifluous koels are making | 10 | ··˘/˘˘··/˘ |
| Their paeans of love. | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Behold the bright rivers and rills in their glancing, | 12 | ˘/··/˘····/˘ |
| Melodious flight, | 5 | ˘/˘˘· |
| Behold how the sumptuous peacocks are dancing | 11 | ˘/··/˘/··/˘ |
| In rhythmic delight. | 5 | ·/˘˘/ |
| Shall we in the midst of life's exquisite chorus | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| Remember our grief, | 6 | ˘/˘/˘· |
| O heart, when the rapturous season is o'er us | 11 | ····/˘/˘··· |
| Of blossom and leaf? | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Their joy from the birds and the streams let us borrow, | 12 | ··········/· |
| O heart! let us sing, | 5 | ····· |
| The years are before us for weeping and sorrow . . . | 12 | ·······/˘·/˘ |
| To-day it is spring! | 5 | ····· |
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.