Lo! as a dove when up she springs
Lo! as a dove when up she springsTo hear thro’ Heaven a tale of woe,Some dolorous message knit belowThe wild pulsation of her wings;
Like her I go: I cannot stay;I leave this mortal ark behind,A weight of nerves without a mind,And leave the cliffs, and haste away
O’er ocean mirrors rounded large,And reach the glow of southern skies,And see the sails at distance rise,And linger weeping on the marge,
And saying; ‘Comes he thus, my friend?Is this the end of all my care?’And circle moaning in the air:‘Is this the end? Is this the end?’
And forward dart again, and playAbout the prow, and back returnTo where the body sits, and learn,That I have been an hour away.
Words in this poem
- dolorous a.
- Full of grief; sad; sorrowful; doleful; dismal; as, a dolorous object; dolorous discourses. [L. dolorosus, from dolor: cf. F. douloureux. See Dolor.]
- marge n.
- Border; margin; edge; verge. [F. marge. See Margin.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lo! as a dove when up she springs is in the public domain. This text is taken from In memoriam, Project Gutenberg ebook #70950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alfred Tennyson, Lo! as a dove when up she springs, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-12.html, id L18372.
Form and metre
Lo! as a dove when up she springs is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 25% 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 ABBA springsA · woeB · belowB · wingsA
- 2 ABBA stayA · behindB · mindB · awayA
- 3 ABBA largeA · skiesB · riseB · margeA
- 4 ABBA friendA · careB · airB · endA
- 5 ABBA playA · returnB · learnB · awayA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Lo! as a dove when up she springs | 8 | ········ |
| To hear thro’ Heaven a tale of woe, | 8 | ···/···· |
| Some dolorous message knit below | 9 | ·/˘˘/˘··· |
| The wild pulsation of her wings; | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Like her I go: I cannot stay; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I leave this mortal ark behind, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A weight of nerves without a mind, | 8 | ········ |
| And leave the cliffs, and haste away | 8 | ······˘/ |
| O’er ocean mirrors rounded large, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| And reach the glow of southern skies, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And see the sails at distance rise, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And linger weeping on the marge, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And saying; ‘Comes he thus, my friend? | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Is this the end of all my care?’ | 8 | ········ |
| And circle moaning in the air: | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| ‘Is this the end? Is this the end?’ | 8 | ········ |
| And forward dart again, and play | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| About the prow, and back return | 8 | ······˘/ |
| To where the body sits, and learn, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That I have been an hour away. | 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.