Indian Love-Song
SheLike a serpent to the calling voice of flutes,Glides my heart into thy fingers, O my Love!Where the night-wind, like a lover, leans aboveHis jasmine-gardens and sirisha-bowers;And on ripe boughs of many-coloured fruitsBright parrots cluster like vermilion flowers.
HeLike the perfume in the petals of a rose,Hides thy heart within my bosom, O my love!Like a garland, like a jewel, like a doveThat hangs its nest in the asoka-tree.Lie still, O love, until the morning sowsHer tents of gold on fields of ivory.
About this text
Indian Love-Song 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, Indian Love-Song, in The Golden Threshold (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #680, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-golden-threshold/indian-love-song.html, id L27484.
Form and metre
Indian Love-Song is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. The metre is trochaic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
See other poems in trochaic hexameter.
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 -ABBCAC she · flutesA · loveB · aboveB · bowersC · fruitsA · flowersC
- 2 ABCCAB- heA · roseB · loveC · doveC · treeA · sowsB · ivory
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 trochaic hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| She | 1 | · |
| Like a serpent to the calling voice of flutes, | 11 | ··/˘··/˘··· |
| Glides my heart into thy fingers, O my Love! | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| Where the night-wind, like a lover, leans above | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| His jasmine-gardens and sirisha-bowers; | 11 | ·/˘/˘····/˘ |
| And on ripe boughs of many-coloured fruits | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Bright parrots cluster like vermilion flowers. | 11 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘/˘ |
| He | 1 | · |
| Like the perfume in the petals of a rose, | 11 | ··˘/··/˘··· |
| Hides thy heart within my bosom, O my love! | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| Like a garland, like a jewel, like a dove | 10 | ··/˘··/··· |
| That hangs its nest in the asoka-tree. | 10 | ·········· |
| Lie still, O love, until the morning sows | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Her tents of gold on fields of ivory. | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
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.