To a Black Dancer in “The Little Savoy”
Wine-maidenOf the jazz-tuned night,LipsSweet as purple dew,BreastsLike the pillows of all sweet dreams,Who crushedThe grapes of joyAnd dripped their juiceOn you?
About this text
To a Black Dancer in “The Little Savoy” 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, To a Black Dancer in “The Little Savoy”, in The Weary Blues (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #74745, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hughes-weary-blues/to-a-black-dancer-in-the-little-savoy.html, id L01499.
Form and metre
To a Black Dancer in “The Little Savoy” is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 3.5 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 60% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 maiden · night · lips · dewA · breasts · dreams · crushed · joy · juice · youA
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 dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Wine-maiden | 3 | ·/˘ |
| Of the jazz-tuned night, | 5 | ····· |
| Lips | 1 | · |
| Sweet as purple dew, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Breasts | 1 | · |
| Like the pillows of all sweet dreams, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Who crushed | 2 | ·· |
| The grapes of joy | 4 | ···· |
| And dripped their juice | 4 | ···· |
| On you? | 2 | ·· |
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.