Constance Hately
You praise my self-sacrifice, Spoon River,In rearing Irene and Mary,Orphans of my older sister!And you censure Irene and MaryFor their contempt for me!But praise not my self-sacrifice.And censure not their contempt;I reared them, I cared for them, true enough!—But I poisoned my benefactionsWith constant reminders of their dependence.
About this text
Constance Hately is in the public domain. This text is taken from Spoon River Anthology, Project Gutenberg ebook #1280; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edgar Lee Masters, Constance Hately, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/constance-hately.html, id L07750.
Form and metre
Constance Hately is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.6 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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----BB river · maryA · sister · maryA · me · sacrifice · contempt · enough · benefactionsB · dependenceB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| You praise my self-sacrifice, Spoon River, | 10 | ····/˘··/˘ |
| In rearing Irene and Mary, | 8 | ·/˘˘/·/˘ |
| Orphans of my older sister! | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| And you censure Irene and Mary | 9 | ··/˘˘/·/˘ |
| For their contempt for me! | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| But praise not my self-sacrifice. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And censure not their contempt; | 7 | ·/˘··˘/ |
| I reared them, I cared for them, true enough!— | 10 | ········˘/ |
| But I poisoned my benefactions | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| With constant reminders of their dependence. | 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.