Tea
When the elephant’s-ear in the parkShrivelled in frost,And the leaves on the pathsRan like rats,Your lamp-light fellOn shining pillows,Of sea-shades and sky-shades,Like umbrellas in Java.
About this text
Tea 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, Tea, in Harmonium (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #78743, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevens-harmonium/tea.html, id L01086.
Form and metre
Tea is 8 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is anapaestic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.5 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When the elephant’s-ear in the park | 9 | ··/˘˘···· |
| Shrivelled in frost, | 4 | /˘·· |
| And the leaves on the paths | 6 | ······ |
| Ran like rats, | 3 | ··· |
| Your lamp-light fell | 4 | ···· |
| On shining pillows, | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| Of sea-shades and sky-shades, | 6 | ······ |
| Like umbrellas in Java. | 7 | ·˘/˘·/˘ |
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.