Matin Song
Pack, clouds, away! and welcome, day!With night we banish sorrow.Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloftTo give my Love good-morrow!Wings from the wind to please her mind,Notes from the lark I’ll borrow:Bird, prune thy wing! nightingale, sing!To give my Love good-morrow!To give my Love good-morrowNotes from them all I’ll borrow.
Wake from thy nest, robin red-breast!Sing, birds, in every furrow!And from each bill let music shrillGive my fair Love good-morrow!Blackbird and thrush in every bush,Stare, linnet, and cocksparrow,You pretty elves, among yourselvesSing my fair Love good-morrow!To give my Love good-morrow!Sing, birds, in every furrow!
Words in this poem
- borrow v. t.
- To receive from another as a loan, with the implied or expressed intention of returning the identical article or its equivalent in kind; -- the opposite of lend. [OE. borwen, AS. borgian, fr. borg, borh, pledge; akin to D. borg, G. borg; prob. fr. root of AS. beorgan to protect. Borough.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Matin Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Heywood, Matin Song, in Poems (1650), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-thomas-heywood/matin-song.html, id L16018.
Form and metre
Matin Song is 20 lines in 2 stanzas of 10 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 9 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -A-A-B-AAB day · sorrowA · aloft · morrowA · mind · borrowB · sing · morrowA · morrowA · borrowB
- 2 -A-B---BBA breast · furrowA · shrill · morrowB · bush · cocksparrow · yourselves · morrowB · morrowB · furrowA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Pack, clouds, away! and welcome, day! | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| With night we banish sorrow. | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft | 8 | ······˘/ |
| To give my Love good-morrow! | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Wings from the wind to please her mind, | 8 | ········ |
| Notes from the lark I’ll borrow: | 7 | ·····/· |
| Bird, prune thy wing! nightingale, sing! | 7 | ····/˘· |
| To give my Love good-morrow! | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| To give my Love good-morrow | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Notes from them all I’ll borrow. | 7 | ·····/· |
| Wake from thy nest, robin red-breast! | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Sing, birds, in every furrow! | 8 | ···/˘˘/˘ |
| And from each bill let music shrill | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Give my fair Love good-morrow! | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Blackbird and thrush in every bush, | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| Stare, linnet, and cocksparrow, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| You pretty elves, among yourselves | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Sing my fair Love good-morrow! | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| To give my Love good-morrow! | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Sing, birds, in every furrow! | 8 | ···/˘˘/˘ |
Notes from the edition 1
Quiller-Couch's glosses on the hard words, from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900, chosen and edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch (Oxford, 1900; Project Gutenberg #66619)
- Stanza 1 _205._ stare] starling.
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