Village-Song
Honey, child, honey, child, whither are you going?Would you cast your jewels all to the breezes blowing?Would you leave the mother who on golden grain has fed you?Would you grieve the lover who is riding forth to wed you?
Mother mine, to the wild forest I am going,Where upon the champa boughs the champa buds are blowing;To the koil-haunted river-isles where lotus lilies glisten,The voices of the fairy folk are calling me: O listen!
Honey, child, honey, child, the world is full of pleasure,Of bridal-songs and cradle-songs and sandal-scented leisure.Your bridal robes are in the loom, silver and saffron glowing,Your bridal cakes are on the hearth: O whither are you going?
The bridal-songs and cradle-songs have cadences of sorrow,The laughter of the sun to-day, the wind of death to-morrow.Far sweeter sound the forest-notes where forest-streams are falling;O mother mine, I cannot stay, the fairy-folk are calling.
Words in this poem
- whither adv.
- To what place; -- used interrogatively; as, whither goest thou [OE. whider. AS. hwider; akin to E. where, who; cf. Goth. hvadre whither. See Who, and cf. Hither, Thither.]
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Village-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, Village-Song, in The Golden Threshold (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #680, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-golden-threshold/village-song.html, id L27481.
Form and metre
Village-Song is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic octameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in iambic octameter.
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 AABB goingA · blowingA · youB · youB
- 2 AABB goingA · blowingA · glistenB · listenB
- 3 AABB pleasureA · leisureA · glowingB · goingB
- 4 AABB sorrowA · morrowA · fallingB · callingB
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 octameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Honey, child, honey, child, whither are you going? | 12 | /˘·/˘·/˘··/˘ |
| Would you cast your jewels all to the breezes blowing? | 13 | ····/˘···/˘/˘ |
| Would you leave the mother who on golden grain has fed you? | 14 | ····/˘··/˘···· |
| Would you grieve the lover who is riding forth to wed you? | 14 | ····/˘··/˘···· |
| Mother mine, to the wild forest I am going, | 12 | /˘····/˘··/˘ |
| Where upon the champa boughs the champa buds are blowing; | 14 | ····/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| To the koil-haunted river-isles where lotus lilies glisten, | 15 | ···/˘/˘··/˘/˘/˘ |
| The voices of the fairy folk are calling me: O listen! | 15 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| Honey, child, honey, child, the world is full of pleasure, | 13 | /˘·/˘······/˘ |
| Of bridal-songs and cradle-songs and sandal-scented leisure. | 15 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘/˘/˘ |
| Your bridal robes are in the loom, silver and saffron glowing, | 15 | ·/˘·····/˘·/˘/˘ |
| Your bridal cakes are on the hearth: O whither are you going? | 15 | ·/˘······/˘··/˘ |
| The bridal-songs and cradle-songs have cadences of sorrow, | 15 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘˘·/˘ |
| The laughter of the sun to-day, the wind of death to-morrow. | 15 | ·/˘··········/˘ |
| Far sweeter sound the forest-notes where forest-streams are falling; | 15 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| O mother mine, I cannot stay, the fairy-folk are calling. | 15 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘··/˘ |
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.