Song of a Dream
Once in the dream of a night I stoodLone in the light of a magical wood,Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang;And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang,And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed,And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowedIn that magical wood in the land of sleep.
Lone in the light of that magical grove,I felt the stars of the spirits of LoveGather and gleam round my delicate youth,And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth;To quench my longing I bent me lowBy the streams of the spirits of Peace that flowIn that magical wood in the land of sleep.
Words in this poem
- lone n.
- A lane. See Loanin.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song of a Dream 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, Song of a Dream, in The Golden Threshold (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #680, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-golden-threshold/song-of-a-dream.html, id L27487.
Form and metre
Song of a Dream is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 71% of the lines: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCC- stoodA · woodA · sprangB · sangB · glowedC · flowedC · sleep
- 2 --AABB- grove · love · youthA · truthA · lowB · flowB · sleep
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Once in the dream of a night I stood | 9 | ········· |
| Lone in the light of a magical wood, | 10 | ······/˘˘· |
| Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang; | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
| And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| In that magical wood in the land of sleep. | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| Lone in the light of that magical grove, | 10 | ······/˘˘· |
| I felt the stars of the spirits of Love | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| Gather and gleam round my delicate youth, | 10 | /˘····/˘˘· |
| And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth; | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| To quench my longing I bent me low | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| In that magical wood in the land of sleep. | 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.