Tattoo
The light is like a spider.It crawls over the water.It crawls over the edges of the snow.It crawls under your eyelidsAnd spreads its webs there--Its two webs.
The webs of your eyesAre fastenedTo the flesh and bones of youAs to rafters or grass.
There are filaments of your eyesOn the surface of the waterAnd in the edges of the snow.
About this text
Tattoo is in the public domain. This text is taken from Harmonium, Project Gutenberg ebook #78743; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Wallace Stevens, Tattoo, in Harmonium (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #78743, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevens-harmonium/tattoo.html, id L01062.
Form and metre
Tattoo is 13 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.5 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 46% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The light is like a spider. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| It crawls over the water. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| It crawls over the edges of the snow. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| It crawls under your eyelids | 7 | ·····/· |
| And spreads its webs there-- | 5 | ····· |
| Its two webs. | 3 | ··· |
| The webs of your eyes | 5 | ····· |
| Are fastened | 3 | ·/˘ |
| To the flesh and bones of you | 7 | ······· |
| As to rafters or grass. | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| There are filaments of your eyes | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| On the surface of the water | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| And in the edges of the snow. | 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.