August
When my eyes are weeds,And my lips are petals, spinningDown the wind that has beginningWhere the crumpled beeches startIn a fringe of salty reeds;When my arms are elder-bushes,And the rangy lilac pushesUpward, upward through my heart;
Summer, do your worst!Light your tinsel moon, and call onYour performing stars to fall onHeadlong through your paper sky;Nevermore shall I be cursedBy a flushed and amorous slattern,With her dusty laces' patternTrailing, as she straggles by.
Words in this poem
- salty a.
- Somewhat salt; saltish.
- rangy a.
- Inclined or able to range, or rove about, for considerable distances; apt or suited for much roving, --chiefly used of cattle.
- nevermore adv.
- Never again; at no time hereafter. Testament of Love. Tyndale.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- cursed a.
- Deserving a curse; execrable; hateful; detestable; abominable.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
August 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, August, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/august.html, id L27342.
Form and metre
August is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBCADDC. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
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 ABBCADDC weedsA · spinningB · beginningB · startC · reedsA · bushesD · pushesD · heartC
- 2 ABBCADDC worstA · onB · onB · skyC · cursedA · slatternD · patternD · byC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When my eyes are weeds, | 5 | ····· |
| And my lips are petals, spinning | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Down the wind that has beginning | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Where the crumpled beeches start | 8 | ··/˘˘/˘· |
| In a fringe of salty reeds; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| When my arms are elder-bushes, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| And the rangy lilac pushes | 8 | ··/˘/·/˘ |
| Upward, upward through my heart; | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Summer, do your worst! | 5 | /˘··· |
| Light your tinsel moon, and call on | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Your performing stars to fall on | 8 | ·˘/˘···· |
| Headlong through your paper sky; | 7 | /···/˘· |
| Nevermore shall I be cursed | 8 | /˘·····˘ |
| By a flushed and amorous slattern, | 9 | ····/˘˘/˘ |
| With her dusty laces' pattern | 8 | ··/˘/˘/˘ |
| Trailing, as she straggles by. | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
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.