Unwarned
'T is sunrise, little maid, hast thouNo station in the day?'T was not thy wont to hinder so, --Retrieve thine industry.
'T is noon, my little maid, alas!And art thou sleeping yet?The lily waiting to be wed,The bee, dost thou forget?
My little maid, 't is night; alas,That night should be to theeInstead of morning! Hadst thou broachedThy little plan to me,Dissuade thee if I could not, sweet,I might have aided thee.
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- retrieve n.
- A seeking again; a discovery. B. Jonson.
- dissuade v. t.
- To advise or exhort against; to try to persuade (one from a course). [L. dissuadere, dissuasum; dis- + suadere to advise, persuade: cf. F. dissuader. See Suasion.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Unwarned 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, Unwarned, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/unwarned.html, id L03807.
Form and metre
Unwarned is 14 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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.
- 2 -A-A alas · yetA · wed · forgetA
- 3 -A-A-A alas · theeA · broached · meA · sweet · theeA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| 'T is sunrise, little maid, hast thou | 9 | ··/·/˘··· |
| No station in the day? | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| 'T was not thy wont to hinder so, -- | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Retrieve thine industry. | 6 | ˘/·/˘˘ |
| 'T is noon, my little maid, alas! | 9 | ····/˘·˘/ |
| And art thou sleeping yet? | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The lily waiting to be wed, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| The bee, dost thou forget? | 6 | ····˘/ |
| My little maid, 't is night; alas, | 9 | ·/˘····˘/ |
| That night should be to thee | 6 | ······ |
| Instead of morning! Hadst thou broached | 8 | ˘/·/˘··· |
| Thy little plan to me, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Dissuade thee if I could not, sweet, | 8 | ˘/······ |
| I might have aided thee. | 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.