Leili
The serpents are asleep among the poppies,The fireflies light the soundless panther's wayTo tangled paths where shy gazelles are straying,And parrot-plumes outshine the dying day.O soft! the lotus-buds upon the streamAre stirring like sweet maidens when they dream.
A caste-mark on the azure brows of Heaven,The golden moon burns sacred, solemn, brightThe winds are dancing in the forest-temple,And swooning at the holy feet of Night.Hush! in the silence mystic voices singAnd make the gods their incense-offering.
Words in this poem
- soundless a.
- Not capable of being sounded or fathomed; unfathomable.
- outshine v. i.
- To shine forth.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Leili 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, Leili, in The Golden Threshold (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #680, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-golden-threshold/leili.html, id L27494.
Form and metre
Leili is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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-ABB poppies · wayA · straying · dayA · streamB · dreamB
- 2 -A-ABB heaven · brightA · temple · nightA · singB · offeringB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The serpents are asleep among the poppies, | 11 | ·/˘·˘/···/˘ |
| The fireflies light the soundless panther's way | 11 | ·/˘···/˘/˘· |
| To tangled paths where shy gazelles are straying, | 11 | ·/˘···˘/·/˘ |
| And parrot-plumes outshine the dying day. | 10 | ·/˘·/··/˘· |
| O soft! the lotus-buds upon the stream | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Are stirring like sweet maidens when they dream. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| A caste-mark on the azure brows of Heaven, | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| The golden moon burns sacred, solemn, bright | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| The winds are dancing in the forest-temple, | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/˘ |
| And swooning at the holy feet of Night. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Hush! in the silence mystic voices sing | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| And make the gods their incense-offering. | 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.