Men
They hail you as their morning starBecause you are the way you are.If you return the sentiment,They'll try to make you different;And once they have you, safe and sound,They want to change you all around.Your moods and ways they put a curse on;They'd make of you another person.They cannot let you go your gait;They influence and educate.They'd alter all that they admired.They make me sick, they make me tired.
Words in this poem
- admired a.
- Regarded with wonder and delight; highly prized; as, an admired poem.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Men 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, Men, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/men.html, id L27383.
Form and metre
Men is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AABBCCDDEEFF starA · areA · sentimentB · differentB · soundC · aroundC · onD · personD · gaitE · educateE · admiredF · tiredF
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| They hail you as their morning star | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Because you are the way you are. | 8 | ········ |
| If you return the sentiment, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘˘ |
| They'll try to make you different; | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And once they have you, safe and sound, | 8 | ········ |
| They want to change you all around. | 8 | ········ |
| Your moods and ways they put a curse on; | 9 | ········· |
| They'd make of you another person. | 9 | ····˘/˘/˘ |
| They cannot let you go your gait; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| They influence and educate. | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| They'd alter all that they admired. | 9 | ·/˘···˘/˘ |
| They make me sick, they make me tired. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
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.