The Poet to Death
Tarry a while, O Death, I cannot dieWhile yet my sweet life burgeons with its spring;Fair is my youth, and rich the echoing boughsWhere dhadikulas sing.
Tarry a while, O Death, I cannot dieWith all my blossoming hopes unharvested,My joys ungarnered, all my songs unsung,And all my tears unshed.
Tarry a while, till I am satisfiedOf love and grief, of earth and altering sky;Till all my human hungers are fulfilled,O Death, I cannot die!
Words in this poem
- unshed a.
- Not parted or divided, as the hair.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Poet to Death is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Golden Threshold, with an introduction by Arthur Symons (Hyderabad, 1905; London, John Lane, 1905), Project Gutenberg ebook #680; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sarojini Naidu, The Poet to Death, in The Golden Threshold (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #680, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-golden-threshold/the-poet-to-death.html, id L27505.
Form and metre
The Poet to Death is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 -A-A die · springA · boughs · singA
- 2 -A-A die · unharvestedA · unsung · unshedA
- 3 -A-A satisfied · skyA · fulfilled · dieA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Tarry a while, O Death, I cannot die | 10 | /˘·····˘/· |
| While yet my sweet life burgeons with its spring; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Fair is my youth, and rich the echoing boughs | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Where dhadikulas sing. | 6 | ······ |
| Tarry a while, O Death, I cannot die | 10 | /˘·····˘/· |
| With all my blossoming hopes unharvested, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| My joys ungarnered, all my songs unsung, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| And all my tears unshed. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Tarry a while, till I am satisfied | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Of love and grief, of earth and altering sky; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Till all my human hungers are fulfilled, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| O Death, I cannot die! | 6 | ···/˘· |
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.