Swan Song
First you are hot,Then you are cold;And the best you have gotIs the fact you are old.Labor and hoard,Worry and wed,And the biggest rewardIs to die in bed.A long time to sweat,A little while to shiver;It’s all you’ll get—Where’s the nearest river?
Words in this poem
- biggest a.
- , superl. of Big.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Swan Song 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, Swan Song, in Sunset Gun (1928), text of English Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/parker-sunset-gun/swan-song.html, id L27444.
Form and metre
Swan Song is 12 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFEF. The metre is anapaestic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in anapaestic 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 ABABCDCDEFEF hotA · coldB · gotA · oldB · hoardC · wedD · rewardC · bedD · sweatE · shiverF · getE · riverF
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 anapaestic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| First you are hot, | 4 | ···· |
| Then you are cold; | 4 | ···· |
| And the best you have got | 6 | ······ |
| Is the fact you are old. | 6 | ······ |
| Labor and hoard, | 4 | /˘·· |
| Worry and wed, | 4 | /˘·· |
| And the biggest reward | 6 | ··/˘˘/ |
| Is to die in bed. | 5 | ····· |
| A long time to sweat, | 5 | ····· |
| A little while to shiver; | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| It’s all you’ll get— | 4 | ···· |
| Where’s the nearest river? | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
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.