The Leal
The friends I made have slipped and strayed,And who's the one that cares?A trifling lot and best forgot--And that's my tale, and theirs.
Then if my friendships break and bend,There's little need to cryThe while I know that every foeIs faithful till I die.
About this text
The Leal 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, The Leal, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/the-leal.html, id L27380.
Form and metre
The Leal is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 98%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 -A-A strayed · caresA · forgot · theirsA
- 2 -A-A bend · cryA · foe · dieA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The friends I made have slipped and strayed, | 8 | ········ |
| And who's the one that cares? | 6 | ······ |
| A trifling lot and best forgot-- | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| And that's my tale, and theirs. | 6 | ······ |
| Then if my friendships break and bend, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| There's little need to cry | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| The while I know that every foe | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Is faithful till I die. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
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.