To Mary Shelley
My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,And left me in this dreary world alone?Thy form is here indeed--a lovely one--But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road,That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode;Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair,WhereFor thine own sake I cannot follow thee.
Words in this poem
- wherefore adv.
- For which reason; so; -- used relatively. [Where + for.]
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- dreary a.
- Sorrowful; distressful. [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
- abode n.
- Act of waiting; delay. [OE. abad, abood, fr. abiden to abide. See Abide. For the change of vowel, cf. abode, imp. of abide.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Mary Shelley is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #4798; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Percy Bysshe Shelley, To Mary Shelley, in The Complete Poetical Works, Volume II (1816–1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4798, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shelley-later-poems/to-mary-shelley.html, id L18607.
Form and metre
To Mary Shelley is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.9 syllables. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ---AABB- gone · alone · one · roadA · abodeA · despairB · whereB · thee
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| And left me in this dreary world alone? | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Thy form is here indeed--a lovely one-- | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode; | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘/ |
| Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Where | 1 | · |
| For thine own sake I cannot follow thee. | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
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.