Love Song
Sweep the house clean,hang fresh curtainsin the windowsput on a new dressand come with me!The elm is scatteringits little loavesof sweet smellsfrom a white sky!
Who shall hear of usin the time to come?Let him say there wasa burst of fragrancefrom black branches.
Words in this poem
- 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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Book of Poems, Al Que Quiere!, Project Gutenberg ebook #51997; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Carlos Williams, Love Song, in Al Que Quiere! (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51997, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-al-que-quiere/love-song-2.html, id L01109.
Form and metre
Love Song is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 4.4 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 64% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic dimeter.
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 clean · curtains · windows · dress · meA · scattering · loaves · smells · skyA
- 2 --A-A us · come · wasA · fragrance · branchesA
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 dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Sweep the house clean, | 4 | ···· |
| hang fresh curtains | 4 | ··/˘ |
| in the windows | 4 | ··/˘ |
| put on a new dress | 5 | ····· |
| and come with me! | 4 | ···· |
| The elm is scattering | 5 | ···/˘ |
| its little loaves | 4 | ·/˘· |
| of sweet smells | 3 | ··· |
| from a white sky! | 4 | ···· |
| Who shall hear of us | 5 | ····· |
| in the time to come? | 5 | ····· |
| Let him say there was | 5 | ····· |
| a burst of fragrance | 5 | ···/˘ |
| from black branches. | 4 | ··/˘ |
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.