Three Songs of Shattering
The first rose on my rose-treeBudded, bloomed, and shattered,During sad days when to meNothing mattered.
Grief of grief has drained me clean;Still it seems a pityNo one saw,--it must have beenVery pretty.
Let the little birds sing;Let the little lambs play;Spring is here; and so ’tis spring;--But not in the old way!
I recall a placeWhere a plum-tree grew;There you lifted up your face,And blossoms covered you.
If the little birds sing,And the little lambs play,Spring is here; and so ’tis spring--But not in the old way!
All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!Ere spring was going--ah! spring is gone!And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,--Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on.
All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree,Browned at the edges, turned in a day;And I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me,And weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way!
About this text
Three Songs of Shattering 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, Three Songs of Shattering, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59167, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/millay-poems/three-songs-of-shattering.html, id L24336.
Form and metre
Three Songs of Shattering is 28 lines in 7 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
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 ABAB treeA · shatteredB · meA · matteredB
- 2 ABAB cleanA · pityB · beenA · prettyB
- 3 ABAB singA · playB · springA · wayB
- 4 ABAB placeA · grewB · faceA · youB
- 5 ABAB singA · playB · springA · wayB
- 6 ABAB treeA · goneB · meA · onB
- 7 ABAB treeA · dayB · meA · wayB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The first rose on my rose-tree | 7 | ······· |
| Budded, bloomed, and shattered, | 8 | /˘·˘·/˘˘ |
| During sad days when to me | 7 | /˘····· |
| Nothing mattered. | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| Grief of grief has drained me clean; | 8 | ·····˘·· |
| Still it seems a pity | 6 | ····/˘ |
| No one saw,--it must have been | 7 | ······· |
| Very pretty. | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| Let the little birds sing; | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Let the little lambs play; | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Spring is here; and so ’tis spring;-- | 7 | ······· |
| But not in the old way! | 6 | ······ |
| I recall a place | 5 | ·/··· |
| Where a plum-tree grew; | 5 | ····· |
| There you lifted up your face, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And blossoms covered you. | 7 | ·/˘/˘˘· |
| If the little birds sing, | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| And the little lambs play, | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Spring is here; and so ’tis spring-- | 7 | ······· |
| But not in the old way! | 6 | ······ |
| All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree! | 12 | ····/˘··˘/·· |
| Ere spring was going--ah! spring is gone! | 8 | ···/···· |
| And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,-- | 13 | ····/˘······· |
| Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on. | 11 | /˘··/˘····· |
| All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree, | 12 | ····/˘··˘/·· |
| Browned at the edges, turned in a day; | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| And I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me, | 13 | ············· |
| And weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way! | 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.