Recurrence
We shall have our little day.Take my hand and travel stillRound and round the little way,Up and down the little hill.
It is good to love again;Scan the renovated skies,Dip and drive the idling pen,Sweetly tint the paling lies.Trace the dripping, piercèd heart,Speak the fair, insistent verse,Vow to God, and slip apart,Little better, little worse.
Would we need not know beforeHow shall end this prettiness;One of us must love the more,One of us shall love the less.
Thus it is, and so it goes;We shall have our day, my dear.Where, unwilling, dies the roseBuds the new, another year.
Words in this poem
- 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,]
- scan v. t.
- To mount by steps; to go through with step by step. [L. scandere, scansum, to climb, to scan, akin to Skr. skand to spring, leap: cf. F. scander. Cf. Ascend, Descend, Scale a ladder.]
- paling n.
- Pales, in general; a fence formed with pales or pickets; a limit; an inclosure.
- dripping n.
- A falling in drops, or the sound so made.
- insistent a.
- Standing or resting on something; as, an insistent wall. Sir H. [L. insistens, -entis, p. pr. of insistere.]
- prettiness n.
- The quality or state of being pretty; -- used sometimes in a disparaging sense.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Recurrence 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, Recurrence, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/recurrence.html, id L27339.
Form and metre
Recurrence is 20 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 dayA · stillB · wayA · hillB
- 2 ABABCDCD againA · skiesB · penA · liesB · heartC · verseD · apartC · worseD
- 3 ABAB beforeA · prettinessB · moreA · lessB
- 4 ABAB goesA · dearB · roseA · yearB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| We shall have our little day. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Take my hand and travel still | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Round and round the little way, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Up and down the little hill. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| It is good to love again; | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Scan the renovated skies, | 7 | ··/˘·˘· |
| Dip and drive the idling pen, | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Sweetly tint the paling lies. | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Trace the dripping, piercèd heart, | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Speak the fair, insistent verse, | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| Vow to God, and slip apart, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Little better, little worse. | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| Would we need not know before | 7 | ······· |
| How shall end this prettiness; | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| One of us must love the more, | 7 | ······· |
| One of us shall love the less. | 7 | ······· |
| Thus it is, and so it goes; | 7 | ······· |
| We shall have our day, my dear. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Where, unwilling, dies the rose | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| Buds the new, another year. | 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.