Curtain
Villain shows his indiscretion,Villain's partner makes confession.Juvenile, with golden tresses,Finds her pa and dons long dresses.Scapegrace comes home money-laden,Hero comforts tearful maiden,Soubrette marries loyal chappie,Villain skips, and all are happy.
Words in this poem
- indiscretion n.
- The quality or state of being indiscreet; want of discretion; imprudence. [Pref. in- not + discretion: cf. F. indiscrétion.]
- juvenile a.
- Young; youthful; as, a juvenile appearance. [L. juvenilis, from juvenis young; akin to E. young: cf. F. juvénile, juvénil. See Young.]
- scapegrace n.
- A graceless, unprincipled person; one who is wild and reckless.
- tearful a.
- Abounding with tears; weeping; shedding tears; as, tearful eyes.
- soubrette n.
- A female servant or attendant; specifically, as a term of the theater, a lady's maid, in comedies, who acts the part of an intrigante; a meddlesome, mischievous female servant or young woman. [F.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Curtain is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Project Gutenberg ebook #18338; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Paul Laurence Dunbar, Curtain, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/curtain.html, id L00528.
Form and metre
Curtain is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, 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 AABBCCDD indiscretionA · confessionA · tressesB · dressesB · ladenC · maidenC · chappieD · happyD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Villain shows his indiscretion, | 8 | /˘···˘/˘ |
| Villain's partner makes confession. | 8 | /˘/˘·˘/˘ |
| Juvenile, with golden tresses, | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| Finds her pa and dons long dresses. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Scapegrace comes home money-laden, | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| Hero comforts tearful maiden, | 8 | /˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| Soubrette marries loyal chappie, | 8 | ··/˘/˘/˘ |
| Villain skips, and all are happy. | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
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.