A Smile and a Sigh
A smile because the nights are short!And every morning brings such pleasureOf sweet love-making, harmless sport:Love, that makes and finds its treasure;Love, treasure without measure.
A sigh because the days are long!Long long these days that pass in sighing,A burden saddens every song:While time lags who should be flying,We live who would be dying.
About this text
A Smile and a Sigh is in the public domain. This text is taken from Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #16950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Christina Rossetti, A Smile and a Sigh, in Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-goblin-market/a-smile-and-a-sigh.html, id L04353.
Form and metre
A Smile and a Sigh is 10 lines in 2 stanzas of 5 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 10% 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 ABABB shortA · pleasureB · sportA · treasureB · measureB
- 2 ABABB longA · sighingB · songA · flyingB · dyingB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A smile because the nights are short! | 8 | ········ |
| And every morning brings such pleasure | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| Of sweet love-making, harmless sport: | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Love, that makes and finds its treasure; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Love, treasure without measure. | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| A sigh because the days are long! | 8 | ········ |
| Long long these days that pass in sighing, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| A burden saddens every song: | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| While time lags who should be flying, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| We live who would be dying. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
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.