Story
“And if he’s gone away,” said she,“Good riddance, if you’re asking me.I’m not a one to lie awakeAnd weep for anybody’s sake.There’s better lads than him about!I’ll wear my buckled slippers outA-dancing till the break of day.I’m better off with him away!And if he never come,” said she,“Now what on earth is that to me?I wouldn’t have him back!”I hopeHer mother washed her mouth with soap.
Words in this poem
- riddance n.
- The act of ridding or freeing; deliverance; a cleaning up or out.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Story 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, Story, in Sunset Gun (1928), text of English Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-sunset-gun/story.html, id L27452.
Form and metre
Story is 13 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 77% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AABBCCDDAA-EE sheA · meA · awakeB · sakeB · aboutC · outC · dayD · awayD · sheA · meA · back · hopeE · soapE
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| “And if he’s gone away,” said she, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| “Good riddance, if you’re asking me. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| I’m not a one to lie awake | 8 | ······˘/ |
| And weep for anybody’s sake. | 8 | ···/˘˘˘· |
| There’s better lads than him about! | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| I’ll wear my buckled slippers out | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| A-dancing till the break of day. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| I’m better off with him away! | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| And if he never come,” said she, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| “Now what on earth is that to me? | 8 | ········ |
| I wouldn’t have him back!” | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| I hope | 2 | ·· |
| Her mother washed her mouth with soap. | 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.