Light of Love
Joy stayed with me a night--Young and free and fair--And in the morning lightHe left me there.
Then Sorrow came to stay,And lay upon my breast;He walked with me in the day,And knew me best.
I'll never be a bride,Nor yet celibate,So I'm living now with Pride--A cold bedmate.
He must not hear nor see,Nor could he forgiveThat Sorrow still visits meEach day I live.
Words in this poem
- stayed a.
- Staid; fixed; settled; sober; -- now written staid. See Staid.
- celibate n.
- Celibate state; celibacy. [L. aelibatus, fr. caelebs unmarried, single.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Light of Love 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, Light of Love, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/light-of-love.html, id L27326.
Form and metre
Light of Love is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 nightA · fairB · lightA · thereB
- 2 ABAB stayA · breastB · dayA · bestB
- 3 ABAB brideA · celibateB · prideA · bedmateB
- 4 ABAB seeA · forgiveB · meA · liveB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Joy stayed with me a night-- | 6 | ······ |
| Young and free and fair-- | 5 | ····· |
| And in the morning light | 6 | ···/˘· |
| He left me there. | 4 | ···· |
| Then Sorrow came to stay, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And lay upon my breast; | 6 | ······ |
| He walked with me in the day, | 7 | ······· |
| And knew me best. | 4 | ···· |
| I'll never be a bride, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Nor yet celibate, | 5 | ··/˘˘ |
| So I'm living now with Pride-- | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| A cold bedmate. | 4 | ···· |
| He must not hear nor see, | 6 | ······ |
| Nor could he forgive | 5 | ···˘/ |
| That Sorrow still visits me | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| Each day I live. | 4 | ···· |
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.