Lament
Listen, children:Your father is dead.From his old coatsI’ll make you little jackets;I’ll make you little trousersFrom his old pants.There’ll be in his pocketsThings he used to put there,Keys and penniesCovered with tobacco;Dan shall have the penniesTo save in his bank;Anne shall have the keysTo make a pretty noise with.Life must go on,And the dead be forgotten;Life must go on,Though good men die;Anne, eat your breakfast;Dan, take your medicine;Life must go on;I forget just why.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lament 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, Lament, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59167, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/millay-poems/lament.html, id L24379.
Form and metre
Lament is 22 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 --AA--A-B-B-B-CCCD-CCD children · dead · coatsA · jacketsA · trousers · pants · pocketsA · there · penniesB · tobacco · penniesB · bank · keysB · with · onC · forgottenC · onC · dieD · breakfast · medicineC · onC · whyD
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Listen, children: | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| Your father is dead. | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| From his old coats | 4 | ···· |
| I’ll make you little jackets; | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| I’ll make you little trousers | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| From his old pants. | 4 | ···· |
| There’ll be in his pockets | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| Things he used to put there, | 6 | ······ |
| Keys and pennies | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Covered with tobacco; | 7 | /˘˘·˘/· |
| Dan shall have the pennies | 6 | ····/˘ |
| To save in his bank; | 5 | ····· |
| Anne shall have the keys | 5 | ····· |
| To make a pretty noise with. | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Life must go on, | 4 | ···· |
| And the dead be forgotten; | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Life must go on, | 4 | ···· |
| Though good men die; | 4 | ···· |
| Anne, eat your breakfast; | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Dan, take your medicine; | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
| Life must go on; | 4 | ···· |
| I forget just why. | 5 | ·˘/·· |
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.