The Song of Princess Zeb-un-nissa in Praise of Her Own Beauty
When from my cheek I lift my veil,The roses turn with envy pale,And from their pierced hearts, rich with pain,Send forth their fragrance like a wail.
Or if perchance one perfumed tressBe lowered to the wind's caress,The honeyed hyacinths complain,And languish in a sweet distress.
And, when I pause, still groves among,(Such loveliness is mine) a throngOf nightingales awake and strainTheir souls into a quivering song.
Words in this poem
- tress n.
- A braid, knot, or curl, of hair; a ringlet. [OE. tresse, OF. trece, F. tresse, LL. tricia, fr. Gr. tri`cha threefold, because a tress is usually formed by interlacing three pieces; akin to trei^s three. Se]
- caress n.
- An act of endearment; any act or expression of affection; an embracing, or touching, with tenderness. [F. caresse, It. carezza, LL. caritia dearness, fr. L. carus dear. See Charity.]
- honeyed a.
- Covered with honey.
- languish v. i.
- To cause to dr Shak.
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Song of Princess Zeb-un-nissa in Praise of Her Own Beauty 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, The Song of Princess Zeb-un-nissa in Praise of Her Own Beauty, in The Golden Threshold (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #680, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-golden-threshold/the-song-of-princess-zeb-un-nissa-in-praise-of-her-own-beaut.html, id L27500.
Form and metre
The Song of Princess Zeb-un-nissa in Praise of Her Own Beauty is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
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 AABA veilA · paleA · painB · wailA
- 2 CCBC tressC · caressC · complainB · distressC
- 3 -DBD among · throngD · strainB · songD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When from my cheek I lift my veil, | 8 | ········ |
| The roses turn with envy pale, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And from their pierced hearts, rich with pain, | 8 | ········ |
| Send forth their fragrance like a wail. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Or if perchance one perfumed tress | 8 | ··˘/·˘/· |
| Be lowered to the wind's caress, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| The honeyed hyacinths complain, | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘˘/ |
| And languish in a sweet distress. | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| And, when I pause, still groves among, | 8 | ········ |
| (Such loveliness is mine) a throng | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| Of nightingales awake and strain | 8 | ·/˘˘˘/·· |
| Their souls into a quivering song. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
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.