Humayun to Zobeida
You flaunt your beauty in the rose, your glory in the dawn,Your sweetness in the nightingale, your whiteness in the swan.
You haunt my waking like a dream, my slumber like a moon,Pervade me like a musky scent, possess me like a tune.
Yet, when I crave of you, my sweet, one tender moment's grace,You cry, "I SIT BEHIND THE VEIL, I CANNOT SHOW MY FACE."
Shall any foolish veil divide my longing from my bliss?Shall any fragile curtain hide your beauty from my kiss?
What war is this of THEE and ME? Give o'er the wanton strife,You are the heart within my heart, the life within my life.
Words in this poem
- flaunt n.
- Anything displayed for show.
- pervade v. t.
- To pass or flow through, as an aperture, pore, or interstice; to permeate. [L. pervadere, pervasum; per + vadere to go, to walk. See Per-, and Wade.]
- crave v. t.
- To ask with earnestness or importunity; to ask with submission or humility; to beg; to entreat; to beseech; to implore. [AS. crafian; akin to Icel. krefia, Sw. kr, Dan. kr.]
- 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,]
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Humayun to Zobeida is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Golden Threshold, with an introduction by Arthur Symons (Hyderabad, 1905; London, John Lane, 1905), Project Gutenberg ebook #680; 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, Humayun to Zobeida, in The Golden Threshold (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #680, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-golden-threshold/humayun-to-zobeida.html, id L27488.
Form and metre
Humayun to Zobeida is 10 lines in 5 stanzas of 2 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is fourteeners, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in fourteeners.
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 AA dawnA · swanA
- 2 AA moonA · tuneA
- 3 AA graceA · faceA
- 4 AA blissA · kissA
- 5 AA strifeA · lifeA
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 fourteeners. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| You flaunt your beauty in the rose, your glory in the dawn, | 14 | ···/˘····/˘··· |
| Your sweetness in the nightingale, your whiteness in the swan. | 14 | ·/˘··/˘˘·/˘··· |
| You haunt my waking like a dream, my slumber like a moon, | 14 | ···/˘····/˘··· |
| Pervade me like a musky scent, possess me like a tune. | 14 | ˘/···/˘·˘/···· |
| Yet, when I crave of you, my sweet, one tender moment's grace, | 14 | ·········/˘/˘· |
| You cry, "I SIT BEHIND THE VEIL, I CANNOT SHOW MY FACE." | 14 | ·········/˘··· |
| Shall any foolish veil divide my longing from my bliss? | 14 | ·/˘/˘·˘/·/˘··· |
| Shall any fragile curtain hide your beauty from my kiss? | 14 | ·/˘/˘/˘··/˘··· |
| What war is this of THEE and ME? Give o'er the wanton strife, | 14 | ···········/˘· |
| You are the heart within my heart, the life within my life. | 14 | ·············· |
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.