The Thin Edge
With you, my heart is quiet here,And all my thoughts are cool as rain.I sit and let the shifting yearGo by before the window-pane,And reach my hand to yours, my dear ...I wonder what it's like in Spain.
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 Thin Edge 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 Thin Edge, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/the-thin-edge.html, id L27374.
Form and metre
The Thin Edge is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
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 ABABAB hereA · rainB · yearA · paneB · dearA · spainB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| With you, my heart is quiet here, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And all my thoughts are cool as rain. | 8 | ········ |
| I sit and let the shifting year | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Go by before the window-pane, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And reach my hand to yours, my dear ... | 8 | ········ |
| I wonder what it's like in Spain. | 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.