Only a Simple Rhyme
Only a simple rhyme of love and sorrow,Where "blisses" rhymed with "kisses," "heart," with "dart:"Yet, reading it, new strength I seemed to borrow,To live on bravely and to do my part.
A little rhyme about a heart that's bleeding--Of lonely hours and sorrow's unrelief:I smiled at first; but there came with the readingA sense of sweet companionship in grief.
The selfishness of my own woe forsaking,I thought about the singer of that song.Some other breast felt this same weary aching;Another found the summer days too long.
The few sad lines, my sorrow so expressing,I read, and on the singer, all unknown,I breathed a fervent though a silent blessing,And seemed to clasp his hand within my own.
And though fame pass him and he never know it,And though he never sings another strain,He has performed the mission of the poet,In helping some sad heart to bear its pain.
Words in this poem
- borrow v. t.
- To receive from another as a loan, with the implied or expressed intention of returning the identical article or its equivalent in kind; -- the opposite of lend. [OE. borwen, AS. borgian, fr. borg, borh, pledge; akin to D. borg, G. borg; prob. fr. root of AS. beorgan to protect. Borough.]
- bravely adv.
- In a brave manner; courageously; gallantly; valiantly; splendidly; nobly.
- aching a.
- That aches; continuously painful. See Ache.
- fervent a.
- Hot; glowing; boiling; burning; as, a fervent summer. [F. fervent, L. fervens, -entis. p.pr. of fervere o the boiling hot, to boil, glow.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Only a Simple Rhyme is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Passion, Project Gutenberg ebook #16776; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Only a Simple Rhyme, in Poems of Passion (1883), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16776, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wilcox-passion/only-a-simple-rhyme.html, id L22208.
Form and metre
Only a Simple Rhyme is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 4 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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-A sorrow · dartA · borrow · partA
- 2 ABAB bleedingA · unreliefB · readingA · griefB
- 3 ABAB forsakingA · songB · achingA · longB
- 4 ABAB expressingA · unknownB · blessingA · ownB
- 5 ABAB itA · strainB · poetA · painB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Only a simple rhyme of love and sorrow, | 11 | /˘·/˘····/˘ |
| Where "blisses" rhymed with "kisses," "heart," with "dart:" | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Yet, reading it, new strength I seemed to borrow, | 11 | ·/˘······/· |
| To live on bravely and to do my part. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| A little rhyme about a heart that's bleeding-- | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| Of lonely hours and sorrow's unrelief: | 10 | ·/˘/·/˘··· |
| I smiled at first; but there came with the reading | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| A sense of sweet companionship in grief. | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| The selfishness of my own woe forsaking, | 11 | ·/˘˘····˘/˘ |
| I thought about the singer of that song. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Some other breast felt this same weary aching; | 11 | ·/˘····/˘/˘ |
| Another found the summer days too long. | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘··· |
| The few sad lines, my sorrow so expressing, | 11 | ·····/˘·˘/˘ |
| I read, and on the singer, all unknown, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| I breathed a fervent though a silent blessing, | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/˘ |
| And seemed to clasp his hand within my own. | 10 | ·········· |
| And though fame pass him and he never know it, | 10 | ·······/·· |
| And though he never sings another strain, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| He has performed the mission of the poet, | 11 | ··˘/·/˘··/˘ |
| In helping some sad heart to bear its pain. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
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.