Vintage
I will mix me a drink of stars,--Large stars with polychrome needles,Small stars jetting maroon and crimson,Cool, quiet, green stars.I will tear them out of the sky,And squeeze them over an old silver cup,And I will pour the cold scorn of my Beloved into it,So that my drink shall be bubbled with ice.
It will lap and scratchAs I swallow it down;And I shall feel it as a serpent of fire,Coiling and twisting in my belly.His snortings will rise to my head,And I shall be hot, and laugh,Forgetting that I have ever known a woman.
Words in this poem
- polychrome n.
- Esculin; -- so called in allusion to its fluorescent solutions.
- 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
Vintage 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, Vintage, in Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1020, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lowell-amy-sword-blades/vintage.html, id L08224.
Form and metre
Vintage is 15 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. 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.6 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 7% 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---- starsA · needles · crimson · starsA · sky · cup · it · ice
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 will mix me a drink of stars,-- | 8 | ········ |
| Large stars with polychrome needles, | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| Small stars jetting maroon and crimson, | 9 | ··/˘˘/·/˘ |
| Cool, quiet, green stars. | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| I will tear them out of the sky, | 8 | ········ |
| And squeeze them over an old silver cup, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And I will pour the cold scorn of my Beloved into it, | 14 | ·········˘/··· |
| So that my drink shall be bubbled with ice. | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| It will lap and scratch | 5 | ····· |
| As I swallow it down; | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| And I shall feel it as a serpent of fire, | 11 | ·······/˘·/ |
| Coiling and twisting in my belly. | 9 | /˘·/˘··/˘ |
| His snortings will rise to my head, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And I shall be hot, and laugh, | 7 | ······· |
| Forgetting that I have ever known a woman. | 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.