The Dance of Love
The music sighs and slumbers,It stirs and sleeps again . . .Hush, it wakes and weeps and murmursLike a woman's heart in pain;Now it laughs and calls and coaxes,Like a lover in the night,Now it pants with sudden longing,Now it sobs with spent delight.
Like bright and wind-blown lilies,The dancers sway and shine,Swift in a rhythmic circle,Soft in a rhythmic line;Their lithe limbs gleam like amberThro' their veils of golden gauze,As they glide and bend and beckon,As they wheel and wind and pause.
The voices of lutes and cymbalsFail on the failing breeze,And the midnight's soul grows wearyWith the scent of the champak trees;But the subtle feet of the dancersIn a long, returning chain,Wake in the heart of loversLove's ecstasy and pain.
Words in this poem
- rhythmic a.
- Pertaining to, or of the nature of, rhythm DAy and night I worked my rhythmic thought. Mrs. Browning. [Gr. rhythmicus, F. rhythmique.]
- lithe v. i.
- To listen or listen to; to hearken to. P. Plowman. [Icel Listen.]
- beckon v. t.
- To make a significant sign to; hence, to summon, as by a motion of the hand.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Dance 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, The Dance 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/the-dance-of-love.html, id L27520.
Form and metre
The Dance of Love is 24 lines in 3 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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-B-B slumbers · againA · murmurs · painA · coaxes · nightB · longing · delightB
- 2 -A-A-BAB lilies · shineA · circle · lineA · amber · gauzeB · beckonA · pauseB
- 3 -A-AABAB cymbals · breezeA · weary · treesA · dancersA · chainB · loversA · painB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The music sighs and slumbers, | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| It stirs and sleeps again . . . | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Hush, it wakes and weeps and murmurs | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Like a woman's heart in pain; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Now it laughs and calls and coaxes, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Like a lover in the night, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Now it pants with sudden longing, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Now it sobs with spent delight. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Like bright and wind-blown lilies, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| The dancers sway and shine, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Swift in a rhythmic circle, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Soft in a rhythmic line; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Their lithe limbs gleam like amber | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Thro' their veils of golden gauze, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| As they glide and bend and beckon, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| As they wheel and wind and pause. | 7 | ······· |
| The voices of lutes and cymbals | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| Fail on the failing breeze, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And the midnight's soul grows weary | 8 | ··/···/˘ |
| With the scent of the champak trees; | 8 | ········ |
| But the subtle feet of the dancers | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| In a long, returning chain, | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| Wake in the heart of lovers | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Love's ecstasy and pain. | 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.