Song
Eyes like flowers and falling hairSeldom seen, nor ever long,Then I did not know you wereDestined subject for a song:Sharing your unconsciousnessOf your double loveliness,Unaware how fair you were,Peaceful eyes and shadowy hair.
Only, now your beauty fallsSweetly on some other place,Lonely reverie recallsMore than anything your face;Any idle hour may findStealing on my captured mind,Faintly merging from the air,Eyes like flowers and falling hair.
Words in this poem
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
- unaware a.
- Not aware; not noticing; giving no heed; thoughtless; inattentive.
- reverie n.
- A loose or irregular train of thought occurring in musing or mediation; deep musing; daydream. [F. réverie, fr. rêver to dream, rave, be light-headed. Cf. Rave.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems - First Series, Project Gutenberg ebook #37860; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Collings Squire, Song, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/song-2.html, id L23196.
Form and metre
Song is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABCBDDCA hairA · longB · wereC · songB · unconsciousnessD · lovelinessD · wereC · hairA
- 2 ABABCCDD fallsA · placeB · recallsA · faceB · findC · mindC · airD · hairD
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Eyes like flowers and falling hair | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| Seldom seen, nor ever long, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Then I did not know you were | 7 | ······· |
| Destined subject for a song: | 8 | /˘˘˘/··· |
| Sharing your unconsciousness | 7 | /˘··/˘˘ |
| Of your double loveliness, | 7 | ··/˘/˘˘ |
| Unaware how fair you were, | 7 | ·˘/···· |
| Peaceful eyes and shadowy hair. | 8 | /˘··/˘˘· |
| Only, now your beauty falls | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Sweetly on some other place, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Lonely reverie recalls | 7 | /˘/˘˘˘/ |
| More than anything your face; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Any idle hour may find | 8 | /˘/˘/˘·· |
| Stealing on my captured mind, | 8 | /˘··/˘˘· |
| Faintly merging from the air, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Eyes like flowers and falling hair. | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
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.