Nature rarer uses yellow
Nature rarer uses yellowThan another hue;Saves she all of that for sunsets, --Prodigal of blue,
Spending scarlet like a woman,Yellow she affordsOnly scantly and selectly,Like a lover's words.
Words in this poem
- spending n.
- The act of expending; expenditure. Spending money, money set apart for extra (not necessary) personal expenses; pocket money.
- scantly adv.
- In a scant manner; not fully or sufficiently; narrowly; penuriously.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Nature rarer uses yellow 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, Nature rarer uses yellow, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/nature-rarer-uses-yellow.html, id L18976.
Form and metre
Nature rarer uses yellow is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 yellow · hueA · sunsets · blueA
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Nature rarer uses yellow | 8 | /˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| Than another hue; | 5 | ·˘/˘· |
| Saves she all of that for sunsets, -- | 8 | ······/· |
| Prodigal of blue, | 5 | /˘˘·· |
| Spending scarlet like a woman, | 8 | /˘/˘··/˘ |
| Yellow she affords | 5 | /˘·˘/ |
| Only scantly and selectly, | 8 | /˘/˘···· |
| Like a lover's words. | 5 | ··/˘· |
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.