Assault II
I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walkBetween me and the crying of the frogs?Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,That am a timid woman, on her wayFrom one house to another!
About this text
Assault II is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59167; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Assault II, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59167, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/millay-poems/assault-ii.html, id L24368.
Form and metre
Assault II is 5 lines in a single stanza.
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.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk | 10 | ··/··/˘··· |
| Between me and the crying of the frogs? | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| That am a timid woman, on her way | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| From one house to another! | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
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.