A Gift
See! I give myself to you, Beloved!My words are little jarsFor you to take and put upon a shelf.Their shapes are quaint and beautiful,And they have many pleasant colours and lustresTo recommend them.Also the scent from them fills the roomWith sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses.
When I shall have given you the last one,You will have the whole of me,But I shall be dead.
Words in this poem
- quaint a.
- Prudent; wise; hence, crafty; artful; wily. [OE. queint, queynte, coint, prudent, wise, cunning, pretty, odd, OF. cointe cultivated, amiable, agreeable, neat, fr. L. cognitus known, p. p. of cognoscere to ]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Gift is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, Project Gutenberg ebook #1020; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Amy Lowell, A Gift, in Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1020, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lowell-amy-sword-blades/a-gift.html, id L08218.
Form and metre
A Gift is 11 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.3 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 27% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| See! I give myself to you, Beloved! | 10 | ····/··˘/˘ |
| My words are little jars | 6 | ···/˘· |
| For you to take and put upon a shelf. | 10 | ·········· |
| Their shapes are quaint and beautiful, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And they have many pleasant colours and lustres | 11 | ···//˘/˘·/˘ |
| To recommend them. | 5 | ··˘/· |
| Also the scent from them fills the room | 9 | /˘······· |
| With sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses. | 10 | ·/˘·/˘··/˘ |
| When I shall have given you the last one, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| You will have the whole of me, | 7 | ······· |
| But I shall be dead. | 5 | ····· |
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.