Epitaph for a Darling Lady
All her hours were yellow sands,Blown in foolish whorls and tassels;Slipping warmly through her hands;Patted into little castles.
Shiny day on shiny dayTumble in a rainbow clutter,As she flipped them all away,Sent them spinning down the gutter.
Leave for her a red young rose,Go your way, and save your pity;She is happy, for she knowsThat her dust is very pretty.
Words in this poem
- warmly adv.
- In a warm manner; ardently.
- shiny a.
- Bright; luminous; clear; unclouded.
- clutter v. t.
- To clot or coagulate, as blood. Holland. [From Clod, n.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Epitaph for a Darling Lady 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, Epitaph for a Darling Lady, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/epitaph-for-a-darling-lady.html, id L27332.
Form and metre
Epitaph for a Darling Lady is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
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 ABAB sandsA · tasselsB · handsA · castlesB
- 2 ABAB dayA · clutterB · awayA · gutterB
- 3 ABAB roseA · pityB · knowsA · prettyB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| All her hours were yellow sands, | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| Blown in foolish whorls and tassels; | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Slipping warmly through her hands; | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Patted into little castles. | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| Shiny day on shiny day | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Tumble in a rainbow clutter, | 8 | /˘··/·/˘ |
| As she flipped them all away, | 8 | ···˘··˘/ |
| Sent them spinning down the gutter. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Leave for her a red young rose, | 7 | ······· |
| Go your way, and save your pity; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| She is happy, for she knows | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| That her dust is very pretty. | 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.