To a Much Too Unfortunate Lady
He will love you presentlyIf you be the way you be.Send your heart a-skittering,He will stoop, and lift the thing.Be your dreams as thread, to teaseInto patterns he shall please.Let him see your passion isEver tenderer than his....Go and bless your star above,Thus are you, and thus is Love.
He will leave you white with woe,If you go the way you go.If your dreams were thread to weave,He will pluck them from his sleeve.If your heart had come to rest,He will flick it from his breast.Tender though the love he bore,You had loved a little more....Lady, go and curse your star,Thus Love is, and thus you are.
Words in this poem
- presently adv.
- At present; at this time; now.
- 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,]
- flick v. t.
- To whip lightly or with a quick jerk; to flap; as, to flick a horse; to flick the dirt from boots. Thackeray. [Cf. Flicker.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To a Much Too Unfortunate Lady 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, To a Much Too Unfortunate Lady, in Enough Rope (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #68353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-enough-rope/to-a-much-too-unfortunate-lady.html, id L27333.
Form and metre
To a Much Too Unfortunate Lady is 20 lines in 2 stanzas of 10 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABBCCDDEE. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
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 AABBCCDDEE presentlyA · beA · skitteringB · thingB · teaseC · pleaseC · isD · hisD · aboveE · loveE
- 2 AABBCCDDEE woeA · goA · weaveB · sleeveB · restC · breastC · boreD · moreD · starE · areE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| He will love you presently | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| If you be the way you be. | 7 | ······· |
| Send your heart a-skittering, | 7 | ······· |
| He will stoop, and lift the thing. | 7 | ······· |
| Be your dreams as thread, to tease | 7 | ······· |
| Into patterns he shall please. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Let him see your passion is | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Ever tenderer than his.... | 7 | /˘····· |
| Go and bless your star above, | 7 | ······· |
| Thus are you, and thus is Love. | 7 | ······· |
| He will leave you white with woe, | 7 | ······· |
| If you go the way you go. | 7 | ······· |
| If your dreams were thread to weave, | 7 | ······· |
| He will pluck them from his sleeve. | 7 | ······· |
| If your heart had come to rest, | 7 | ······· |
| He will flick it from his breast. | 7 | ······· |
| Tender though the love he bore, | 7 | /˘····· |
| You had loved a little more.... | 8 | ···˘·/˘· |
| Lady, go and curse your star, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Thus Love is, and thus you are. | 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.