Retort
"Thou art a fool," said my head to my heart,"Indeed, the greatest of fools thou art,To be led astray by the trick of a tress,By a smiling face or a ribbon smart;"And my heart was in sore distress.
Then Phyllis came by, and her face was fair,The light gleamed soft on her raven hair;And her lips were blooming a rosy red.Then my heart spoke out with a right bold air:"Thou art worse than a fool, O head!"
Words in this poem
- tress n.
- A braid, knot, or curl, of hair; a ringlet. [OE. tresse, OF. trece, F. tresse, LL. tricia, fr. Gr. tri`cha threefold, because a tress is usually formed by interlacing three pieces; akin to trei^s three. Se]
- spoke n.
- The radius or ray of a wheel; one of the small bars which are inserted in the hub, or nave, and which serve to support the rim or felly. [OE. spoke, spake, AS, spaca; akin to D. speek, LG. speke, OHG. speihha, G. speiche. sq. root170. Cf. Spike a nail.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Retort 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, Retort, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/retort.html, id L00483.
Form and metre
Retort is 10 lines in 2 stanzas of 5 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.5 syllables.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABAB heartA · artA · tressB · smartA · distressB
- 2 AABAB fairA · hairA · redB · airA · headB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| "Thou art a fool," said my head to my heart, | 10 | ·········· |
| "Indeed, the greatest of fools thou art, | 9 | ˘/·/˘···· |
| To be led astray by the trick of a tress, | 11 | ···˘/······ |
| By a smiling face or a ribbon smart;" | 10 | ··/˘···/˘· |
| And my heart was in sore distress. | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Then Phyllis came by, and her face was fair, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The light gleamed soft on her raven hair; | 10 | ···˘···/˘· |
| And her lips were blooming a rosy red. | 10 | ····/˘·/˘· |
| Then my heart spoke out with a right bold air: | 10 | ·········· |
| "Thou art worse than a fool, O head!" | 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.