A Dream Lies Dead
A dream lies dead here. May you softly goBefore this place, and turn away your eyes,Nor seek to know the look of that which diesImportuning Life for life. Walk not in woe,But, for a little, let your step be slow.And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wiseWith words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies.A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know:
Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree—Though white of bloom as it had been beforeAnd proudly waitful of fecundity—One little loveliness can be no more;And so must Beauty bow her imperfect headBecause a dream has joined the wistful dead!
Words in this poem
- fecundity n.
- The quality or power of producing fruit; fruitfulness; especially (Biol.), the quality in female organisms of reproducing rapidly and in great numbers. [L. fecunditas: cf. F. fécondité. See Fecund.]
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
- wistful a.
- Longing; wishful; desirous. [For wishful; perhaps influenced by wistly, which is probably corrupted from OE. wisly certainly (from Icel. viss certain, akin to E. wit). See Wish.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Dream Lies Dead is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sunset Gun: Poems (Boni & Liveright, 1928), English Wikisource; 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, A Dream Lies Dead, in Sunset Gun (1928), text of English Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-sunset-gun/a-dream-lies-dead.html, id L27447.
Form and metre
A Dream Lies Dead is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABBAABBA goA · eyesB · diesB · woeA · slowA · wiseB · skiesB · knowA
- 2 -A-ABB tree · beforeA · fecundity · moreA · headB · 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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A dream lies dead here. May you softly go | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Before this place, and turn away your eyes, | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Nor seek to know the look of that which dies | 10 | ·········· |
| Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe, | 11 | ··········· |
| But, for a little, let your step be slow. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies. | 11 | ··········· |
| A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know: | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree— | 11 | ˘/˘·/˘/˘··· |
| Though white of bloom as it had been before | 10 | ·········· |
| And proudly waitful of fecundity— | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘˘ |
| One little loveliness can be no more; | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘···· |
| And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head | 11 | ···/˘··˘/˘· |
| Because a dream has joined the wistful dead! | 10 | ·······/˘· |
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.