Anecdote
So silent I when Love was byHe yawned, and turned away;But Sorrow clings to my apron-strings,I have so much to say.
About this text
Anecdote is in the public domain. This text is taken from Enough Rope: Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #68353; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Dorothy Parker, Anecdote, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/anecdote.html, id L27330.
Form and metre
Anecdote is 4 lines in a single stanza.
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 by · awayA · strings · sayA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| So silent I when Love was by | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| He yawned, and turned away; | 8 | ··˘··˘˘/ |
| But Sorrow clings to my apron-strings, | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| I have so much to say. | 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.