For Florence Sharon
Ease of heart or ache of heart,Tell me, Love, the thing to be:Flower of dream or dust of dream,You can choose the one for me.
Fire or ash of fire, who knows?Both are folded in the flame.Life all grey and life all roseAre hidden in your name.
Words in this poem
- ache n.
- A name given to several species of plants; as, smallage, wild celery, parsley. Holland. [F. ache, L. apium parsley.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
For Florence Sharon is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lincoln & other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #54527; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Markham, For Florence Sharon, in Lincoln and Other Poems (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #54527, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-lincoln/for-florence-sharon.html, id L10803.
Form and metre
For Florence Sharon is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 12% 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 heart · beA · dream · meA
- 2 ABAB knowsA · flameB · roseA · nameB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of heart or ache of heart, | 7 | ······· |
| Tell me, Love, the thing to be: | 7 | ······· |
| Flower of dream or dust of dream, | 8 | /˘······ |
| You can choose the one for me. | 7 | ······· |
| Fire or ash of fire, who knows? | 9 | /˘···/˘·· |
| Both are folded in the flame. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Life all grey and life all rose | 7 | ······· |
| Are hidden in your name. | 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.