Anticipation
I have been temperate always,But I am like to be very drunkWith your coming.There have been timesI feared to walk down the streetLest I should reel with the wine of you,And jerk against my neighboursAs they go by.I am parched now, and my tongue is horrible in my mouth,But my brain is noisyWith the clash and gurgle of filling wine-cups.
Words in this poem
- gurgle v. i.
- To run or flow in a broken, irregular, noisy current, as water from a bottle, or a small stream among pebbles or stones. [Cf. It. gorgogliare to gargle, bubble up, fr. L. gurgulio gullet. Cf. Gargle, Gorge.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Anticipation 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, Anticipation, in Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1020, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lowell-amy-sword-blades/anticipation.html, id L08223.
Form and metre
Anticipation is 11 lines in a single verse paragraph. 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. 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 46% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| I have been temperate always, | 7 | ···/˘/· |
| But I am like to be very drunk | 9 | ······/˘· |
| With your coming. | 4 | ··/˘ |
| There have been times | 4 | ···· |
| I feared to walk down the street | 7 | ······· |
| Lest I should reel with the wine of you, | 9 | ········· |
| And jerk against my neighbours | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| As they go by. | 4 | ···· |
| I am parched now, and my tongue is horrible in my mouth, | 13 | ········/˘··· |
| But my brain is noisy | 6 | ····/˘ |
| With the clash and gurgle of filling wine-cups. | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
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.