Ebb
I know what my heart is likeSince your love died:It is like a hollow ledgeHolding a little poolLeft there by the tide,A little tepid pool,Drying inward from the edge.
About this text
Ebb 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, Ebb, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59167, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/millay-poems/ebb.html, id L24375.
Form and metre
Ebb is 7 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 -ABCACB like · diedA · ledgeB · poolC · tideA · poolC · edgeB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I know what my heart is like | 7 | ······· |
| Since your love died: | 4 | ···· |
| It is like a hollow ledge | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Holding a little pool | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Left there by the tide, | 5 | ····· |
| A little tepid pool, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Drying inward from the edge. | 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.