The New Love
If it shine or if it rain,Little will I care or know.Days, like drops upon a pane,Slip, and join, and go.
At my door's another lad;Here's his flower in my hair.If he see me pale and sad,Will he see me fair?
I sit looking at the floor.Little will I think or sayIf he seek another door;Even if he stay.
Words in this poem
- pane n.
- The narrow edge of a hammer head. See Peen. [F. panne.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The New 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, The New Love, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/the-new-love.html, id L27336.
Form and metre
The New Love is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
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 rainA · knowB · paneA · goB
- 2 ABAB ladA · hairB · sadA · fairB
- 3 ABAB floorA · sayB · doorA · stayB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| If it shine or if it rain, | 7 | ······· |
| Little will I care or know. | 7 | /˘····· |
| Days, like drops upon a pane, | 7 | ······· |
| Slip, and join, and go. | 5 | ····· |
| At my door's another lad; | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| Here's his flower in my hair. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| If he see me pale and sad, | 7 | ······· |
| Will he see me fair? | 5 | ····· |
| I sit looking at the floor. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Little will I think or say | 7 | /˘····· |
| If he seek another door; | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| Even if he stay. | 5 | /˘··· |
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.