For a Lady Who Must Write Verse
Unto seventy years and seven,Hide your double birthright well—You, that are the brat of HeavenAnd the pampered heir to Hell.
Let your rhymes be tinsel treasures,Strung and seen and thrown aside.Drill your apt and docile measuresSternly as you drill your pride.
Show your quick, alarming skill inTidy mockeries of art;Never, never dip your quill inInk that rushes from your heart.
When your pain must come to paper,See it dust, before the day;Let your night-light curl and caper,Let it lick the words away.
Never print, poor child, a lay onLove and tears and anguishing,Lest a cooled, benignant PhaonMurmur, “Silly little thing!”
Words in this poem
- brat n.
- A coarse garnment or cloak; also, coarse clothing, in general. [OE. bratt coarse garnment, AS. bratt cloak, fr. the Celtic; cf. W. brat clout, rag, Gael. brat cloak, apron, raf, Ir. brat cloak; properly then, a child's bib o]
- pampered a.
- Fed luxuriously; indulged to the full; hence, luxuriant.
- docile a.
- Teachable; easy to teach; docible. [L. docilis,fr. docere to teach; cf. Gr. discere to learn, Gr. docile. Cf. Doctor, Didactic, Disciple.]
- sternly adv.
- In a stern manner.
- alarming a.
- Exciting, or calculated to excite, alarm; causing apprehension of danger; as, an alarming crisis or report.
- benignant a.
- Kind; gracious; favorable. [LL. benignans, p. pr. of benignare, from L. benignus. See Benign.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
For a Lady Who Must Write Verse 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, For a Lady Who Must Write Verse, in Sunset Gun (1928), text of English Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-sunset-gun/for-a-lady-who-must-write-verse.html, id L27471.
Form and metre
For a Lady Who Must Write Verse is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. 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 ABAB sevenA · wellB · heavenA · hellB
- 2 ABAB treasuresA · asideB · measuresA · prideB
- 3 ABAB inA · artB · inA · heartB
- 4 ABAB paperA · dayB · caperA · awayB
- 5 ABAB onA · anguishingB · phaonA · thingB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Unto seventy years and seven, | 9 | ··/˘˘··/˘ |
| Hide your double birthright well— | 7 | ··/˘/·· |
| You, that are the brat of Heaven | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And the pampered heir to Hell. | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| Let your rhymes be tinsel treasures, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Strung and seen and thrown aside. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Drill your apt and docile measures | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Sternly as you drill your pride. | 7 | /˘····· |
| Show your quick, alarming skill in | 8 | ···˘/˘·· |
| Tidy mockeries of art; | 7 | /˘/˘˘·· |
| Never, never dip your quill in | 8 | /˘/˘···· |
| Ink that rushes from your heart. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| When your pain must come to paper, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| See it dust, before the day; | 7 | ······· |
| Let your night-light curl and caper, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Let it lick the words away. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Never print, poor child, a lay on | 8 | /˘······ |
| Love and tears and anguishing, | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Lest a cooled, benignant Phaon | 8 | ···˘˘/˘· |
| Murmur, “Silly little thing!” | 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.