A Prayer
When I am dying, let me knowThat I loved the blowing snowAlthough it stung like whips;That I loved all lovely thingsAnd I tried to take their stingsWith gay unembittered lips;That I loved with all my strength,To my soul's full depth and length,Careless if my heart must break,That I sang as children singFitting tunes to everything,Loving life for its own sake.
About this text
A Prayer is in the public domain. This text is taken from Flame and Shadow, Project Gutenberg ebook #591; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sara Teasdale, A Prayer, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/a-prayer.html, id L16982.
Form and metre
A Prayer is 12 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes AABCCBDDEFFE. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 42% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 AABCCBDDEFFE knowA · snowA · whipsB · thingsC · stingsC · lipsB · strengthD · lengthD · breakE · singF · everythingF · sakeE
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When I am dying, let me know | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That I loved the blowing snow | 8 | ···˘·/˘· |
| Although it stung like whips; | 6 | ······ |
| That I loved all lovely things | 8 | ···˘·/˘· |
| And I tried to take their stings | 7 | ······· |
| With gay unembittered lips; | 8 | ······˘· |
| That I loved with all my strength, | 8 | ···˘···· |
| To my soul's full depth and length, | 7 | ······· |
| Careless if my heart must break, | 7 | /˘····· |
| That I sang as children sing | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Fitting tunes to everything, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Loving life for its own sake. | 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.