A Song
Morpheus! the humble god, that dwellsIn cottages and smoky cells,Hates gilded roofs and beds of down;And though he fears no prince's frown,Flies from the circle of a crown:
Come, I say, thou powerful god,And thy leaden charming rod,Dipp'd in the Lethean lake,O'er his wakeful temples shake,Lest he should sleep, and never wake.
Nature, (alas!) why art thou soObligèd to thy greatest foe?Sleep that is thy best repast,Yet of death it bears a taste,And both are the same thing at last.
Words in this poem
- morpheus n.
- The god of dreams.
- lethean a.
- Of or pertaining to Lethe; resembling in effect the water of Lethe. Milton. Barrow.
- wakeful a.
- Not sleeping; indisposed to sleep; watchful; vigilant.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham, Project Gutenberg ebook #12322; 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 Waller, A Song, in Poetical Works (1645–1668), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waller-denham/a-song.html, id L09158.
Form and metre
A Song is 15 lines in 3 stanzas of 5 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABBB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 13% 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 AABBB dwellsA · cellsA · downB · frownB · crownB
- 2 AABBB godA · rodA · lakeB · shakeB · wakeB
- 3 AABBB soA · foeA · repastB · tasteB · lastB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Morpheus! the humble god, that dwells | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| In cottages and smoky cells, | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| Hates gilded roofs and beds of down; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And though he fears no prince's frown, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Flies from the circle of a crown: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Come, I say, thou powerful god, | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| And thy leaden charming rod, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Dipp'd in the Lethean lake, | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| O'er his wakeful temples shake, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Lest he should sleep, and never wake. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Nature, (alas!) why art thou so | 8 | /˘˘/···· |
| Obligèd to thy greatest foe? | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Sleep that is thy best repast, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Yet of death it bears a taste, | 7 | ······· |
| And both are the same thing at last. | 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.