Fool's Money Bags
Outside the long window,With his head on the stone sill,The dog is lying,Gazing at his Beloved.His eyes are wet and urgent,And his body is taut and shaking.It is cold on the terrace;A pale wind licks along the stone slabs,But the dog gazes through the glassAnd is content.
The Beloved is writing a letter.Occasionally she speaks to the dog,But she is thinking of her writing.Does she, too, give her devotion to oneNot worthy?
About this text
Fool's Money Bags 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, Fool's Money Bags, in Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1020, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lowell-amy-sword-blades/fool-s-money-bags.html, id L08220.
Form and metre
Fool's Money Bags is 15 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 9 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 13% 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.
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- window · sill · lying · beloved · urgent · shaking · terraceA · slabs · glassA · content
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Outside the long window, | 6 | //··/˘ |
| With his head on the stone sill, | 7 | ······· |
| The dog is lying, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Gazing at his Beloved. | 6 | /˘··˘/ |
| His eyes are wet and urgent, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And his body is taut and shaking. | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| It is cold on the terrace; | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| A pale wind licks along the stone slabs, | 9 | ····˘/··· |
| But the dog gazes through the glass | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And is content. | 4 | ··/˘ |
| The Beloved is writing a letter. | 10 | ·˘/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| Occasionally she speaks to the dog, | 10 | ˘/˘˘˘····· |
| But she is thinking of her writing. | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Does she, too, give her devotion to one | 10 | ·····˘/˘·· |
| Not worthy? | 3 | ·/˘ |
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.