Weeds
White with daisies and red with sorrelAnd empty, empty under the sky!--Life is a quest and love a quarrel--Here is a place for me to lie.
Daisies spring from damnèd seeds,And this red fire that here I seeIs a worthless crop of crimson weeds,Cursed by farmers thriftily.
But here, unhated for an hour,The sorrel runs in ragged flame,The daisy stands, a bastard flower,Like flowers that bear an honest name.
And here a while, where no wind bringsThe baying of a pack athirst,May sleep the sleep of blessed thingsThe blood too bright, the brow accurst.
Words in this poem
- cursed a.
- Deserving a curse; execrable; hateful; detestable; abominable.
- thriftily adv.
- In a thrifty manner.
- athirst a.
- Wanting drink; thirsty. [OE. ofthurst, AS. ofpyrsted, p. p. of ofpyrstan; pref. of-, intensive + pyrstan to thirst. See Thirst.]
- accurst p. p.
- Doomed to destruction or misery; cursed; hence, bad enough to be under the curse; execrable; detestable; exceedingly hateful; -- as, an accursed deed.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Weeds 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, Weeds, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59167, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/millay-poems/weeds.html, id L24364.
Form and metre
Weeds is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 ABAB sorrelA · skyB · quarrelA · lieB
- 2 ABAB seedsA · seeB · weedsA · thriftilyB
- 3 ABAB hourA · flameB · flowerA · nameB
- 4 ABAB bringsA · athirstB · thingsA · accurstB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| White with daisies and red with sorrel | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| And empty, empty under the sky!-- | 9 | ·/˘/˘···· |
| Life is a quest and love a quarrel-- | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Here is a place for me to lie. | 8 | ········ |
| Daisies spring from damnèd seeds, | 6 | /˘···· |
| And this red fire that here I see | 8 | ···/···· |
| Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds, | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
| Cursed by farmers thriftily. | 8 | ·˘·/˘/˘˘ |
| But here, unhated for an hour, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| The sorrel runs in ragged flame, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The daisy stands, a bastard flower, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Like flowers that bear an honest name. | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| And here a while, where no wind brings | 8 | ········ |
| The baying of a pack athirst, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| May sleep the sleep of blessed things | 8 | ······˘· |
| The blood too bright, the brow accurst. | 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.