A poor torn heart, a tattered heart
A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,That sat it down to rest,Nor noticed that the ebbing dayFlowed silver to the west,Nor noticed night did soft descendNor constellation burn,Intent upon the visionOf latitudes unknown.
The angels, happening that way,This dusty heart espied;Tenderly took it up from toilAnd carried it to God.There, -- sandals for the barefoot;There, -- gathered from the gales,Do the blue havens by the handLead the wandering sails.
Words in this poem
- tenderly adv.
- In a tender manner; with tenderness; mildly; gently; softly; in a manner not to injure or give pain; with pity or affection; kindly.
- barefoot a.
- With the feet bare; without shoes or stockings.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A poor torn heart, a tattered heart is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Project Gutenberg ebook #12242; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emily Dickinson, A poor torn heart, a tattered heart, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/a-poor-torn-heart-a-tattered-heart.html, id L18945.
Form and metre
A poor torn heart, a tattered heart is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See 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 -A-A-BBB heart · restA · day · westA · descend · burnB · visionB · unknownB
- 2 -----A-A way · espied · toil · god · barefoot · galesA · hand · sailsA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A poor torn heart, a tattered heart, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| That sat it down to rest, | 6 | ······ |
| Nor noticed that the ebbing day | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Flowed silver to the west, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Nor noticed night did soft descend | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Nor constellation burn, | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| Intent upon the vision | 7 | ˘/···/˘ |
| Of latitudes unknown. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| The angels, happening that way, | 7 | ·/˘/˘·· |
| This dusty heart espied; | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Tenderly took it up from toil | 7 | /˘····· |
| And carried it to God. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| There, -- sandals for the barefoot; | 7 | ·/˘··/· |
| There, -- gathered from the gales, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Do the blue havens by the hand | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Lead the wandering sails. | 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.