Mortal Enemy
Let another cross his way—She’s the one will do the weeping!Little need I fear he’ll straySince I have his heart in keeping.
Let another hail him dear—Little chance that he’ll forget me!Only need I curse and fearHer he loved before he met me.
About this text
Mortal Enemy 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, Mortal Enemy, in Sunset Gun (1928), text of English Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-sunset-gun/mortal-enemy.html, id L27433.
Form and metre
Mortal Enemy is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
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 wayA · weepingB · strayA · keepingB
- 2 ABAB dearA · meB · fearA · meB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Let another cross his way— | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| She’s the one will do the weeping! | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Little need I fear he’ll stray | 7 | /˘····· |
| Since I have his heart in keeping. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Let another hail him dear— | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| Little chance that he’ll forget me! | 8 | /˘···˘/· |
| Only need I curse and fear | 7 | /˘····· |
| Her he loved before he met me. | 8 | ········ |
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.