Song by Francis Neilson (1920)
"Song" is a lyric poem of unrequited longing, structured as a single speaker's meditation on separation from a beloved. The poem opens with the speaker's eyes fixed on the absent lips of the beloved, the gaze itself described as "weary" from constant searching, while the heart voices its ache "all day" whenever the beloved is near but unattainable. This paradox—proximity without possession—establishes the poem's central tension: nearness does not satisfy longing but intensifies it, since presence only sharpens the awareness of what remains withheld. The second stanza deepens this tension by introducing a rival presence or a crowd that draws the beloved's "eyes and lips" away from the speaker even when she is physically close. The image of "deep surges" rising in the speaker's soul "as tempests in the sea" casts inner emotion as a natural, uncontrollable force, equating romantic jealousy and grief with elemental turbulence. The sea imagery signals a shift from quiet yearning to something closer to anguish, foreshadowing the poem's darker turn. In the third stanza, the speaker returns to the image of seeking the beloved's lips, but now explicitly denied contact—"press them not"—with the speaker's own lips described as "parched with pain." The physical vocabulary of thirst and heat ("dim and hot") renders emotional deprivation in bodily terms, so that unfulfilled desire reads as a kind of starvation or fever. The stanza closes on a note of futility: the soul "hopes on in vain," acknowledging that persistence in this longing yields no resolution, only continued suffering. The final stanza moves from the ongoing present into finality and solitude. Day gives way to night, mirroring the emotional descent from restless yearning to isolation. The speaker names the night as "lone" and spends its hours counting "the cost / Of days without my own," a closing image that reframes the entire poem as an accounting of loss—time itself measured only in terms of absence. The phrase "my own" implies a claim of possession or belonging that has gone unrealized, so the poem ends not with resolution but with the speaker settled into an ongoing state of deprivation, tallying an accumulating grief rather than escaping it. Formally, the poem uses a tight, song-like quatrain structure with a simple alternating rhyme scheme, reinforcing the title's framing as a "Song"—a piece meant to be felt and voiced rather than narrated. Repetition of key words and phrases across stanzas ("seek your lips," "my own") functions almost as a refrain, giving the poem a cyclical, incantatory quality that mirrors the speaker's inability to move past the fixation on the beloved. The progression from day to night, and from longing to accounting of cost, gives the brief poem a compressed arc: initial ache, jealous disruption, physical denial, and final resigned isolation—a miniature tragedy of desire that finds no consummation, only endurance.
By Francis Neilson · First published 1920 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry, Romantic Poetry · 157 words
First lines
I seek your lips with my fond eyes, / My sight is weary, dear; / My heart with longing all day cries, / For you when you are near.
When you are near and others take / Your eyes and lips from me, / And in my soul deep surges make, / As tempests in the sea.
I seek your lips and press them not, / My own are parched with pain; / My aching eyes are dim and hot -- / My soul hopes on in vain.
The day is gone, and you are lost, / The night for me is lone -- / And through its hours I count the cost / Of days without my own.
What this Textopian page supports
Song is listed on Textopian as a poem by Francis Neilson, dated 1920 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Francis Neilson
- Date: 1920 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry, Romantic Poetry, Poetry of Desire and Longing, Melancholic Poetry
- Length: 157 words
- Structure: 1 section, 4 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Song by Francis Neilson
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Structured as verse with consistent rhyme scheme and lyrical meter, presenting personal emotional expression through poetic form with internal rhythm and musicality.
- Love Poetry — The entire composition centers on romantic longing, desire for physical intimacy, and emotional connection, with repeated imagery of lips and eyes expressing yearning for a beloved.
- Romantic Poetry — Embodies Romantic movement principles: primacy of emotion, idealization of love, melancholic sentiment, subjective personal experience, and metaphorical treatment of inner emotional states.
- Poetry of Desire and Longing — Central motif is unfulfilled yearning—the speaker seeks but cannot possess, emphasizing the emotional distance between proximity and possession, with repeated statements of unfulfilled want.
Tags
poetry · lyric verse · English literature · romanticism · love · nature · emotion · beauty · music · imagination · reflection · spirituality