Ardella
I would liken youTo a night without starsWere it not for your eyes.I would liken youTo a sleep without dreamsWere it not for your songs.
Words in this poem
- liken v. t.
- To allege, or think, to be like; to represent as like; to compare; as, to liken life to a pilgrimage. [OE. liknen. See Like, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Ardella is in the public domain. This text is taken from The weary blues, Project Gutenberg ebook #74745; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Langston Hughes, Ardella, in The Weary Blues (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #74745, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hughes-weary-blues/ardella.html, id L01519.
Form and metre
Ardella is 6 lines in a single stanza. The metre is anapaestic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.7 syllables.
See other poems in anapaestic dimeter.
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-- youA · stars · eyes · youA · dreams · songs
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 anapaestic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I would liken you | 5 | ··/˘· |
| To a night without stars | 6 | ······ |
| Were it not for your eyes. | 6 | ······ |
| I would liken you | 5 | ··/˘· |
| To a sleep without dreams | 6 | ······ |
| Were it not for your songs. | 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.