She Told Her Beads
She told her beads with down-cast eyes,Within the ancient chapel dim;And ever as her fingers slimSlipt o'er th' insensate ivories,My rapt soul followed, spaniel-wise.Ah, many were the beads she wore;But as she told them o'er and o'er,They did not number all my sighs.My heart was filled with unvoiced criesAnd prayers and pleadings unexpressed;But while I burned with Love's unrest,She told her beads with down-cast eyes.
Words in this poem
- insensate a.
- Wanting sensibility; destitute of sense; stupid; foolish. [L. insensatus. See In- not, and Sensate.]
- rapt n.
- An ecstasy; a trance. Bp. Morton. [From F. rapt abduction, rape, L. raptus, fr. rapere to seize and carry off, to transport; or fr. E. rapt, a. See Rapt, a., and Rapid.]
- unrest n.
- Want of rest or repose; unquietness; sleeplessness; uneasiness; disquietude.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
She Told Her Beads 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, She Told Her Beads, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/she-told-her-beads.html, id L00626.
Form and metre
She Told Her Beads is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 ABBAA--AACCA eyesA · dimB · slimB · ivoriesA · wiseA · wore · o'er · sighsA · criesA · unexpressedC · unrestC · eyesA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| She told her beads with down-cast eyes, | 8 | ········ |
| Within the ancient chapel dim; | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And ever as her fingers slim | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Slipt o'er th' insensate ivories, | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘˘ |
| My rapt soul followed, spaniel-wise. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Ah, many were the beads she wore; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| But as she told them o'er and o'er, | 8 | ········ |
| They did not number all my sighs. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| My heart was filled with unvoiced cries | 8 | ········ |
| And prayers and pleadings unexpressed; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But while I burned with Love's unrest, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| She told her beads with down-cast eyes. | 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.