The Bird of Time
O Bird of Time on your fruitful boughWhat are the songs you sing? . . .Songs of the glory and gladness of life,Of poignant sorrow and passionate strife,And the lilting joy of the spring;Of hope that sows for the years unborn,And faith that dreams of a tarrying morn,The fragrant peace of the twilight's breath,And the mystic silence that men call death.
O Bird of Time, say where did you learnThe changing measures you sing? . . .In blowing forests and breaking tides,In the happy laughter of new-made brides,And the nests of the new-born spring;In the dawn that thrills to a mother's prayer,And the night that shelters a heart's despair,In the sigh of pity, the sob of hate,And the pride of a soul that has conquered fate.
Words in this poem
- poignant a.
- Pricking; piercing; sharp; pungent. [F., p. pr. of poindre to sting, fr. L. pungere to prick, sting. See Pungent.]
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- unborn a.
- Not born; no yet brought into life; being still to appear; future.
- 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
The Bird of Time 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, The Bird of Time, in The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring (1912), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-bird-of-time/the-bird-of-time.html, id L27515.
Form and metre
The Bird of Time is 18 lines in 2 stanzas of 9 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 73%).
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 -ABBACCDD bough · singA · lifeB · strifeB · springA · unbornC · mornC · breathD · deathD
- 2 -ABBACCDD learn · singA · tidesB · bridesB · springA · prayerC · despairC · hateD · fateD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O Bird of Time on your fruitful bough | 9 | ······/˘· |
| What are the songs you sing? . . . | 6 | ······ |
| Songs of the glory and gladness of life, | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
| Of poignant sorrow and passionate strife, | 10 | ·/˘/˘·/˘˘· |
| And the lilting joy of the spring; | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Of hope that sows for the years unborn, | 9 | ·······// |
| And faith that dreams of a tarrying morn, | 10 | ······/˘˘· |
| The fragrant peace of the twilight's breath, | 9 | ·/˘···/·· |
| And the mystic silence that men call death. | 10 | ··/˘/˘···· |
| O Bird of Time, say where did you learn | 9 | ········· |
| The changing measures you sing? . . . | 7 | ·/˘/˘·· |
| In blowing forests and breaking tides, | 9 | ·/˘/˘·/˘· |
| In the happy laughter of new-made brides, | 10 | ··/˘/˘···· |
| And the nests of the new-born spring; | 8 | ········ |
| In the dawn that thrills to a mother's prayer, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And the night that shelters a heart's despair, | 10 | ····/˘··˘/ |
| In the sigh of pity, the sob of hate, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| And the pride of a soul that has conquered fate. | 11 | ········/˘· |
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.