Song
How many times do I love thee, dear?Tell me how many thoughts there beIn the atmosphereOf a new-fall’n year,Whose white and sable hours appearThe latest flake of Eternity:So many times do I love thee, dear.
How many times do I love again?Tell me how many beads there areIn a silver chainOf evening rain,Unravell’d from the tumbling main,And threading the eye of a yellow star:So many times do I love again.
Words in this poem
- sable n.
- A carnivorous animal of the Weasel family (Mustela zibellina) native of the northern latitudes of Europe, Asia, and America, -- noted for its fine, soft, and valuable fur. [OF. sable, F. zibeline sable (in sense 4), LL. sabellum; cf. D. sabel, Dan. sabel, zobel, Sw. sabel, sobel, G. zobel; all fr. Russ. sóbole.]
- flake n.
- A paling; a hurdle. [prov. Eng.] [Cf. Icel. flaki, fleki, Dan. flage, D. vlaak.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
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 Lovell Beddoes, Song, in Poems (1803–1849), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-thomas-lovell-beddoes/song.html, id L16206.
Form and metre
Song is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.7 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 36% 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-AAA-A dearA · be · atmosphereA · yearA · appearA · eternity · dearA
- 2 ABAAABA againA · areB · chainA · rainA · mainA · starB · againA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| How many times do I love thee, dear? | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Tell me how many thoughts there be | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| In the atmosphere | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Of a new-fall’n year, | 5 | ····· |
| Whose white and sable hours appear | 9 | ···/˘/˘˘/ |
| The latest flake of Eternity: | 9 | ·/˘··˘/˘˘ |
| So many times do I love thee, dear. | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| How many times do I love again? | 9 | ·/˘····˘/ |
| Tell me how many beads there are | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| In a silver chain | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Of evening rain, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Unravell’d from the tumbling main, | 9 | ·····/˘˘· |
| And threading the eye of a yellow star: | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| So many times do I love again. | 9 | ·/˘····˘/ |
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.