To a Little Lover-Lass, Dead
SheWho searched for loversIn the nightHas gone the quiet wayInto the still,Dark land of deathBeyond the rim of day.
Now like a little lonely waifShe walksAn endless streetAnd gives her kiss to nothingness.Would God his lips were sweet!
About this text
To a Little Lover-Lass, Dead 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 Little Lover-Lass, Dead, in The Weary Blues (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #74745, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hughes-weary-blues/to-a-little-lover-lass-dead.html, id L01495.
Form and metre
To a Little Lover-Lass, Dead is 12 lines in 2 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in trochaic trimeter. 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 4.8 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 67% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 she · lovers · night · wayA · still · death · dayA
- 2 --A-A waif · walks · streetA · nothingness · sweetA
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| She | 1 | · |
| Who searched for lovers | 5 | ···/˘ |
| In the night | 3 | ··· |
| Has gone the quiet way | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Into the still, | 4 | ···· |
| Dark land of death | 4 | ···· |
| Beyond the rim of day. | 6 | ······ |
| Now like a little lonely waif | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| She walks | 2 | ·· |
| An endless street | 4 | ·/˘· |
| And gives her kiss to nothingness. | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Would God his lips were sweet! | 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.