Bric-à-brac
Little things that no one needs—Little things to joke about—Little landscapes, done in beads,Little morals, woven out,Little wreaths of gilded grass,Little brigs of whittled oakBottled painfully in glass;These are made by lonely folk.
Lonely folk have lines of daysLong and faltering and thin;Therefore—little wax bouquets,Prayers cut upon a pin,Little maps of pinkish lands,Little charts of curly seas,Little plats of linen strands,Little verses, such as these.
Words in this poem
- needs adv.
- Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; -- often with must, and equivalent to of need. [Orig. gen. of need, used as an adverb. Cf. - wards.]
- bottled a.
- Put into bottles; inclosed in bottles; pent up in, or as in, a bottle.
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
- faltering a.
- Hesitating; trembling.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Bric-à-brac 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, Bric-à-brac, in Sunset Gun (1928), text of English Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-sunset-gun/bric-brac.html, id L27413.
Form and metre
Bric-à-brac is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABCDCD. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
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 ABABCDCD needsA · aboutB · beadsA · outB · grassC · oakD · glassC · folkD
- 2 ABABCDCD daysA · thinB · bouquetsA · pinB · landsC · seasD · strandsC · theseD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Little things that no one needs— | 7 | /˘····· |
| Little things to joke about— | 7 | /˘····· |
| Little landscapes, done in beads, | 7 | /˘/···· |
| Little morals, woven out, | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| Little wreaths of gilded grass, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Little brigs of whittled oak | 8 | /˘··/˘˘· |
| Bottled painfully in glass; | 8 | /˘˘/˘˘·· |
| These are made by lonely folk. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Lonely folk have lines of days | 7 | /˘····· |
| Long and faltering and thin; | 7 | ··/˘˘·· |
| Therefore—little wax bouquets, | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Prayers cut upon a pin, | 6 | ······ |
| Little maps of pinkish lands, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Little charts of curly seas, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Little plats of linen strands, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Little verses, such as these. | 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.