Sorrow
Sorrow like a ceaseless rainBeats upon my heart.People twist and scream in pain,--Dawn will find them still again;This has neither wax nor wane,Neither stop nor start.
People dress and go to town;I sit in my chair.All my thoughts are slow and brown:Standing up or sitting downLittle matters, or what gownOr what shoes I wear.
Words in this poem
- ceaseless a.
- Without pause or end; incessant.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sorrow is in the public domain. This text is taken from Renascence, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #109; 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, Sorrow, in Renascence and Other Poems (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #109, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/millay-renascence/sorrow.html, id L07726.
Form and metre
Sorrow is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAAAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.3 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABAAAB rainA · heartB · painA · againA · waneA · startB
- 2 ABAAAB townA · chairB · brownA · downA · gownA · wearB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Sorrow like a ceaseless rain | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Beats upon my heart. | 5 | ····· |
| People twist and scream in pain,-- | 7 | /˘····· |
| Dawn will find them still again; | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| This has neither wax nor wane, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Neither stop nor start. | 5 | /˘··· |
| People dress and go to town; | 7 | /˘····· |
| I sit in my chair. | 5 | ····· |
| All my thoughts are slow and brown: | 7 | ······· |
| Standing up or sitting down | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Little matters, or what gown | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Or what shoes I wear. | 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.