Absence
Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool,Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool.
Your kisses fell sharp on my flesh like dawn-dews from the limb,Of a fruit-filled lemon tree when the day is young and dim.
Like soft rain-christened sunshine, as fragile as rare gold lace,Your breath, sweet-scented and warm, has kindled my tranquil face.
But a silence vasty-deep, oh deeper than all these tiesNow, through the menacing miles, brooding between us lies.
And more than the songs I sing, I await your written word,To stir my fluent blood as never your presence stirred.
Words in this poem
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
- await v. t.
- To watch for; to look out for. [OF. awaitier, agaitier; (L. ad) + waitier, gaitier to watch, F. guetter. See Wait.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Absence is in the public domain. This text is taken from Harlem shadows, Project Gutenberg ebook #64989; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Claude McKay, Absence, in Harlem Shadows (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #64989, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/mckay-harlem-shadows/absence.html, id L01387.
Form and metre
Absence is 10 lines in 5 stanzas of 2 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is fourteeners, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 71%). 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.5 syllables. 10% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in fourteeners.
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 AA poolA · coolA
- 2 AA limbA · dimA
- 3 AA laceA · faceA
- 4 AA tiesA · liesA
- 5 AA wordA · stirredA
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 fourteeners. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool, | 14 | ········/˘···· |
| Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool. | 13 | /˘·····/˘·/˘· |
| Your kisses fell sharp on my flesh like dawn-dews from the limb, | 14 | ·/˘··········· |
| Of a fruit-filled lemon tree when the day is young and dim. | 14 | ····/˘········ |
| Like soft rain-christened sunshine, as fragile as rare gold lace, | 14 | ···/˘/··/˘···· |
| Your breath, sweet-scented and warm, has kindled my tranquil face. | 14 | ···/˘···/˘·/˘· |
| But a silence vasty-deep, oh deeper than all these ties | 14 | ··/˘/˘··/˘···· |
| Now, through the menacing miles, brooding between us lies. | 12 | ···/˘·/˘···· |
| And more than the songs I sing, I await your written word, | 14 | ········˘/·/˘· |
| To stir my fluent blood as never your presence stirred. | 12 | ···/˘··/·/˘· |
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.