Mary of Marka
Eric of Marka holds the knife:"A nameless death for a nameless life."--
"Mary of Marka, bid him stay,And the morrow shall be our wedding-day."--
"Will the blessing of priest give back my faith,Or life to the child you left to death?"--
Eric of Marka holds the knife,And turns to the mother that is no wife:
"Mary of Marka, have your will!Shall I spare him, or shall I kill?"--
"He wrought me wrong when the days were sweet,And he'll get no more but a winding-sheet."
Words in this poem
- eric n.
- A recompense formerly given by a murderer to the relatives of the murdered person. [Ir. eiric.]
- nameless a.
- Without a name; not having been given a name; as, a nameless star.
- 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
Mary of Marka is in the public domain. This text is taken from More Songs From Vagabondia, Project Gutenberg ebook #18007; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Bliss Carman, Mary of Marka, in More Songs from Vagabondia (1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18007, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carman-vagabondia/mary-of-marka.html, id L24728.
Form and metre
Mary of Marka is 12 lines in 6 stanzas of 2 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 83% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AA knifeA · lifeA
- 2 AA stayA · dayA
- 4 AA knifeA · wifeA
- 5 AA willA · killA
- 6 AA sweetA · sheetA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Eric of Marka holds the knife: | 8 | /˘······ |
| "A nameless death for a nameless life."-- | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| "Mary of Marka, bid him stay, | 8 | /˘······ |
| And the morrow shall be our wedding-day."-- | 10 | ··/˘··//˘· |
| "Will the blessing of priest give back my faith, | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| Or life to the child you left to death?"-- | 9 | ········· |
| Eric of Marka holds the knife, | 8 | /˘······ |
| And turns to the mother that is no wife: | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| "Mary of Marka, have your will! | 8 | /˘······ |
| Shall I spare him, or shall I kill?"-- | 8 | ········ |
| "He wrought me wrong when the days were sweet, | 9 | ········· |
| And he'll get no more but a winding-sheet." | 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.