Mary McNeely
Passer-by,To love is to find your own soulThrough the soul of the beloved one.When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soulThen you have lost your soul.It is written: “l have a friend,But my sorrow has no friend.”Hence my long years of solitude at the home of my father,Trying to get myself back,And to turn my sorrow into a supremer self.But there was my father with his sorrows,Sitting under the cedar tree,A picture that sank into my heart at lastBringing infinite repose.Oh, ye souls who have made lifeFragrant and white as tube rosesFrom earth’s dark soil,Eternal peace!
About this text
Mary McNeely 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, Mary McNeely, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/mary-mcneely.html, id L07830.
Form and metre
Mary McNeely is 18 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 70%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 28% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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-AABB---C--C-C-- by · soulA · one · soulA · soulA · friendB · friendB · father · back · self · sorrowsC · tree · last · reposeC · life · rosesC · soil · peace
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Passer-by, | 3 | /˘· |
| To love is to find your own soul | 8 | ········ |
| Through the soul of the beloved one. | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul | 12 | ··˘/·˘/˘/··· |
| Then you have lost your soul. | 6 | ······ |
| It is written: “l have a friend, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| But my sorrow has no friend.” | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Hence my long years of solitude at the home of my father, | 15 | ·····/˘······/˘ |
| Trying to get myself back, | 7 | /˘···/· |
| And to turn my sorrow into a supremer self. | 13 | ····/˘······· |
| But there was my father with his sorrows, | 10 | ····/˘··/˘ |
| Sitting under the cedar tree, | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| A picture that sank into my heart at last | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| Bringing infinite repose. | 7 | /˘/˘˘˘/ |
| Oh, ye souls who have made life | 7 | ······· |
| Fragrant and white as tube roses | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| From earth’s dark soil, | 4 | ···· |
| Eternal peace! | 4 | ˘/˘· |
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.