Reponse
When Phyllis sighs and from her eyesThe light dies out; my soul repliesWith misery of deep-drawn breath,E'en as it were at war with death.
When Phyllis smiles, her glance beguilesMy heart through love-lit woodland aisles,And through the silence high and clear,A wooing warbler's song I hear.
But if she frown, despair comes down,I put me on my sack-cloth gown;So frown not, Phyllis, lest I die,But look on me with smile or sigh.
About this text
Reponse 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, Reponse, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/reponse.html, id L00719.
Form and metre
Reponse is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 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 AABB eyesA · repliesA · breathB · deathB
- 2 AABB beguilesA · aislesA · clearB · hearB
- 3 AABB downA · gownA · dieB · sighB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When Phyllis sighs and from her eyes | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The light dies out; my soul replies | 8 | ······˘/ |
| With misery of deep-drawn breath, | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| E'en as it were at war with death. | 8 | ········ |
| When Phyllis smiles, her glance beguiles | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| My heart through love-lit woodland aisles, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| And through the silence high and clear, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A wooing warbler's song I hear. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| But if she frown, despair comes down, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| I put me on my sack-cloth gown; | 8 | ········ |
| So frown not, Phyllis, lest I die, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But look on me with smile or sigh. | 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.