If You Should Go
Love, leave me like the light,The gently passing day;We would not know, but for the night,When it has slipped away.
Go quietly; a dream,When done, should leave no traceThat it has lived, except a gleamAcross the dreamer’s face.
About this text
If You Should Go is in the public domain. This text is taken from Color, Project Gutenberg ebook #70543; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Countee Cullen, If You Should Go, in Color (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70543, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cullen-color/if-you-should-go.html, id L01466.
Form and metre
If You Should Go is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is short measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.6 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in short measure.
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 ABAB lightA · dayB · nightA · awayB
- 2 ABAB dreamA · traceB · gleamA · faceB
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 short measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Love, leave me like the light, | 6 | ······ |
| The gently passing day; | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| We would not know, but for the night, | 8 | ········ |
| When it has slipped away. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Go quietly; a dream, | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| When done, should leave no trace | 6 | ······ |
| That it has lived, except a gleam | 8 | ········ |
| Across the dreamer’s face. | 6 | ˘/·/˘· |
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.