For R.C.B.
Life comes a-hurrying,Or life lags slow;But you’ve stopped worrying—Let it go!Some call it gloomy,Some call it jake;They’re very little to me—Let them eat cake!Some find it fair,Some think it hooey,Many people care;But we don’t, do we?
About this text
For R.C.B. 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 R.C.B., in Sunset Gun (1928), text of English Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-sunset-gun/for-r-c-b.html, id L27416.
Form and metre
For R.C.B. is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in iambic dimeter.
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-CDCE-ED hurryingA · slowB · worryingA · goB · gloomy · jakeC · meD · cakeC · fairE · hooey · careE · weD
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 dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Life comes a-hurrying, | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
| Or life lags slow; | 4 | ···· |
| But you’ve stopped worrying— | 7 | ···˘/˘˘ |
| Let it go! | 3 | ··· |
| Some call it gloomy, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Some call it jake; | 4 | ···· |
| They’re very little to me— | 7 | ·/˘/˘·· |
| Let them eat cake! | 4 | ···· |
| Some find it fair, | 4 | ···· |
| Some think it hooey, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Many people care; | 5 | /˘/˘· |
| But we don’t, do we? | 5 | ····· |
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.