Story of Mrs. W--
My garden blossoms pink and white,A place of decorous murmuringWhere I am safe from August nightAnd cannot feel the knife of spring.
And I may walk the pretty placeBefore the curtsying hollyhocksAnd laundered daisies, round of face--Good little girls, in party frocks.
My trees are amiably arrayedIn pattern on the dappled sky,And I may sit in filtered shadeAnd watch the tidy years go by.
And I may amble pleasantlyAnd hear my neighbors list their bonesAnd click my tongue in sympathy,And count the cracks in paving stones.
My door is grave in oaken strength,The cool of linen calms my bed,And there at night I stretch my lengthAnd envy no one but the dead.
Words in this poem
- amiably adv.
- In an amiable manner.
- dappled a.
- Marked with spots of different shades of color; spotted; variegated; as, a dapple horse.
- amble v. i.
- To go at the easy gait called an amble; -- applied to the horse or to its rider. [F. ambler to amble, fr. L. ambulare to walk, in LL., to amble, perh. fr. amb-, ambi-, and a root meaning to go: cf. Gr. base. Cf. Ambulate.]
- pleasantly adv.
- In a pleasant manner.
- oaken a.
- Made or consisting of oaks or of the wood of oaks. [AS. acen.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Story of Mrs. W-- 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, Story of Mrs. W--, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/story-of-mrs-w.html, id L27340.
Form and metre
Story of Mrs. W-- is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See 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 ABAB whiteA · murmuringB · nightA · springB
- 2 ABAB placeA · hollyhocksB · faceA · frocksB
- 3 ABAB arrayedA · skyB · shadeA · byB
- 4 ABAB pleasantlyA · bonesB · sympathyA · stonesB
- 5 ABAB strengthA · bedB · lengthA · deadB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My garden blossoms pink and white, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| A place of decorous murmuring | 9 | ···/˘˘/˘˘ |
| Where I am safe from August night | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And cannot feel the knife of spring. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And I may walk the pretty place | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Before the curtsying hollyhocks | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And laundered daisies, round of face-- | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Good little girls, in party frocks. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| My trees are amiably arrayed | 8 | ···/˘˘˘/ |
| In pattern on the dappled sky, | 8 | ·/˘···˘· |
| And I may sit in filtered shade | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And watch the tidy years go by. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And I may amble pleasantly | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
| And hear my neighbors list their bones | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And click my tongue in sympathy, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And count the cracks in paving stones. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| My door is grave in oaken strength, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The cool of linen calms my bed, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And there at night I stretch my length | 8 | ········ |
| And envy no one but the dead. | 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.