The Singer
O lark! sweet lark!Where learn you all your minstrelsy?What realms are those to which you fly?While robins feed their young from dawn till dark,You soar on high,—Forever in the sky.
O child! dear child!Above the clouds I lift my wingTo hear the bells of Heaven ring;Some of their music, though my flights be wild,To Earth I bring;Then let me soar and sing!
Words in this poem
- minstrelsy n.
- The arts and occupation of minstrels; the singing and playing of a minstrel.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Singer is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poetical works of Edmund Clarence Stedman, Project Gutenberg ebook #70763; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edmund Clarence Stedman, The Singer, in The Poetical Works of Edmund Clarence Stedman (1860–1897), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70763, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stedman-poems/the-singer.html, id L10640.
Form and metre
The Singer is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.7 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% 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-BABB larkA · minstrelsy · flyB · darkA · highB · skyB
- 2 ABBABB childA · wingB · ringB · wildA · bringB · singB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O lark! sweet lark! | 4 | ···· |
| Where learn you all your minstrelsy? | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| What realms are those to which you fly? | 8 | ········ |
| While robins feed their young from dawn till dark, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| You soar on high,— | 4 | ···· |
| Forever in the sky. | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| O child! dear child! | 4 | ···· |
| Above the clouds I lift my wing | 8 | ········ |
| To hear the bells of Heaven ring; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Some of their music, though my flights be wild, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| To Earth I bring; | 4 | ···· |
| Then let me soar and sing! | 6 | ······ |
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.