The Chase
The wind told the little leaves to hurry,And chased them down the way,While the mother tree laughed loud in glee,For she thought her babes at play,The cruel wind and the rain laughed loudly,We'll bury them deep, they said,And the old tree grieves, and the little leavesLie low, all chilled and dead.
Words in this poem
- glee n.
- Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
- chilled a.
- Hardened on the surface or edge by chilling; as, chilled iron; a chilled wheel.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Chase 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, The Chase, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/the-chase.html, id L00853.
Form and metre
The Chase is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -A-A-B-B hurry · wayA · glee · playA · loudly · saidB · leaves · deadB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The wind told the little leaves to hurry, | 10 | ····/˘··/˘ |
| And chased them down the way, | 6 | ······ |
| While the mother tree laughed loud in glee, | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| For she thought her babes at play, | 7 | ······· |
| The cruel wind and the rain laughed loudly, | 9 | ·/·····/˘ |
| We'll bury them deep, they said, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| And the old tree grieves, and the little leaves | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Lie low, all chilled and dead. | 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.