Fairy Song
Shed no tear! O shed no tear!The flower will bloom another year.Weep no more! O, weep no more!Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.Dry your eyes! Oh! dry your eyes!For I was taught in ParadiseTo ease my breast of melodies--Shed no tear.
Overhead! look overhead!’Mong the blossoms white and red--Look up, look up. I flutter nowOn this flush pomegranate bough.See me! ’tis this silvery bellEver cures the good man’s ill.Shed no tear! O, shed no tear!The flowers will bloom another year.Adieu, adieu--I fly, adieu,I vanish in the heaven’s blue--Adieu, adieu!
About this text
Fairy Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Every Child Should Know The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library, Project Gutenberg ebook #16436; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mary E. Burt, Fairy Song, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/fairy-song.html, id L25192.
Form and metre
Fairy Song is 19 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 AABBC-CA tearA · yearA · moreB · coreB · eyesC · paradise · melodiesC · tearA
- 2 AABBCCDDEED overheadA · redA · nowB · boughB · bellC · illC · tearD · yearD · adieuE · blueE · adieuD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Shed no tear! O shed no tear! | 7 | ······· |
| The flower will bloom another year. | 8 | ·/··˘/˘· |
| Weep no more! O, weep no more! | 7 | ······· |
| Young buds sleep in the root’s white core. | 8 | ········ |
| Dry your eyes! Oh! dry your eyes! | 7 | ······· |
| For I was taught in Paradise | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To ease my breast of melodies-- | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Shed no tear. | 3 | ··· |
| Overhead! look overhead! | 7 | /˘/·/˘/ |
| ’Mong the blossoms white and red-- | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Look up, look up. I flutter now | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| On this flush pomegranate bough. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| See me! ’tis this silvery bell | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Ever cures the good man’s ill. | 7 | /˘····· |
| Shed no tear! O, shed no tear! | 7 | ······· |
| The flowers will bloom another year. | 8 | ·/··˘/˘· |
| Adieu, adieu--I fly, adieu, | 8 | ˘/˘/··˘/ |
| I vanish in the heaven’s blue-- | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Adieu, adieu! | 4 | ˘/˘/ |
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.