A Snake
Sweet is the swamp with its secrets,Until we meet a snake;'T is then we sigh for houses,And our departure takeAt that enthralling gallopThat only childhood knows.A snake is summer's treason,And guile is where it goes.
Words in this poem
- departure n.
- Division; separation; putting away. [From Depart.]
- childhood n.
- The state of being a child; the time in which persons are children; the condition or time from infancy to puberty. [AS. cildhad; cild child + -had. See Child, and hood.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Snake 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 Snake, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/a-snake.html, id L03794.
Form and metre
A Snake is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.8 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -ABA-B-B secrets · snakeA · housesB · takeA · gallop · knowsB · treason · goesB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sweet is the swamp with its secrets, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Until we meet a snake; | 6 | ······ |
| 'T is then we sigh for houses, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And our departure take | 7 | ·/˘˘/˘· |
| At that enthralling gallop | 7 | ··˘/˘/˘ |
| That only childhood knows. | 6 | ·/˘/·· |
| A snake is summer's treason, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| And guile is where it goes. | 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.