Play Song
O lead me by the hand,And let my heart have rest,And bring me back to childhood land,To find again the long-lost bandOf playmates blithe and blest.
Some quaint, old-fashioned air,That all the children knew,Shall run before us everywhere,Like a little maid with flying hair,To guide the merry crew.
Along the garden waysWe chase the light-foot tune,And in and out the flowery maze,With eager haste and fond delays,In pleasant paths of June.
For us the fields are new,For us the woods are rifeWith fairy secrets, deep and true,And heaven is but a tent of blueAbove the game of life.
The world is far away:The fever and the fret,And all that makes the heart grow gray,Is out of sight and far away,Dear Music, while I hear thee playThat olden, golden roundelay,"Remember and forget!"
Words in this poem
- childhood n.
- The state of being a child; the time in which persons are children; the condition or time from infancy to puberty. [AS. cildhad; cild child + -had. See Child, and hood.]
- blithe a.
- Gay; merry; sprightly; joyous; glad; cheerful; as, a blithe spirit. [AS. bli blithe, kind; akin to Goth. blei kind, Icel. bli mild, gentle, Dan. & Sw. blid gentle, D. blijd blithe, OHG. blidi kind, blithe.]
- quaint a.
- Prudent; wise; hence, crafty; artful; wily. [OE. queint, queynte, coint, prudent, wise, cunning, pretty, odd, OF. cointe cultivated, amiable, agreeable, neat, fr. L. cognitus known, p. p. of cognoscere to ]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- maze n.
- A wild fancy; a confused notion. [OE. mase; cf. OE. masen to confuse, puzzle, Norweg. masast to fall into a slumber, masa to be continually busy, prate, chatter, Icel. masa to chatter, dial. Sw.]
- rife a.
- Prevailing; prevalent; abounding. [AS. rif abundant, or Icel. rifr munificent; akin to OD. riff, rijve, abundant.]
- olden a.
- Old; ancient; as, the olden time.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Play Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, Project Gutenberg ebook #16229; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Van Dyke, Play Song, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/play-song.html, id L22971.
Form and metre
Play Song is 27 lines in 5 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAAB, complete in 4 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABAAB handA · restB · landA · bandA · blestB
- 2 ABAAB airA · knewB · everywhereA · hairA · crewB
- 3 ABAAB waysA · tuneB · mazeA · delaysA · juneB
- 4 ABAAB newA · rifeB · trueA · blueA · lifeB
- 5 ABAAAAB awayA · fretB · grayA · awayA · playA · roundelayA · forgetB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O lead me by the hand, | 6 | ······ |
| And let my heart have rest, | 6 | ······ |
| And bring me back to childhood land, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| To find again the long-lost band | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Of playmates blithe and blest. | 6 | ·/···· |
| Some quaint, old-fashioned air, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| That all the children knew, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Shall run before us everywhere, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Like a little maid with flying hair, | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| To guide the merry crew. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Along the garden ways | 6 | ˘/·/˘· |
| We chase the light-foot tune, | 6 | ······ |
| And in and out the flowery maze, | 9 | ·····/˘˘· |
| With eager haste and fond delays, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| In pleasant paths of June. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| For us the fields are new, | 6 | ······ |
| For us the woods are rife | 6 | ······ |
| With fairy secrets, deep and true, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And heaven is but a tent of blue | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Above the game of life. | 6 | ······ |
| The world is far away: | 6 | ····˘/ |
| The fever and the fret, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And all that makes the heart grow gray, | 8 | ········ |
| Is out of sight and far away, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Dear Music, while I hear thee play | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| That olden, golden roundelay, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘˘ |
| "Remember and forget!" | 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.