To S. M
I am not willing you should goInto the earth, where Helen went;She is awake by now, I know.Where Cleopatra’s anklets rustYou will not lie with my consent;And Sappho is a roving dust;Cressid could love again; Dido,Rotted in state, is restless still;You leave me much against my will.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- sappho n.
- Any one of several species of brilliant South American humming birds of the genus Sappho, having very bright-colored and deeply forked tails; -- called also firetail. [See Sapphic.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To S. M 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, To S. M, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59167, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/millay-poems/to-s-m.html, id L24357.
Form and metre
To S. M is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABACBC-DD goA · wentB · knowA · rustC · consentB · dustC · dido · stillD · willD
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I am not willing you should go | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Into the earth, where Helen went; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| She is awake by now, I know. | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Where Cleopatra’s anklets rust | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| You will not lie with my consent; | 8 | ······˘/ |
| And Sappho is a roving dust; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Cressid could love again; Dido, | 8 | ····˘//˘ |
| Rotted in state, is restless still; | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| You leave me much against my will. | 8 | ········ |
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.