Compensation
I should be glad of lonelinessAnd hours that go on broken wings,A thirsty body, a tired heartAnd the unchanging ache of things,If I could make a single songAs lovely and as full of light,As hushed and brief as a falling starOn a winter night.
Words in this poem
- loneliness n.
- The condition of being lonely; solitude; seclusion.
- ache n.
- A name given to several species of plants; as, smallage, wild celery, parsley. Holland. [F. ache, L. apium parsley.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Compensation 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, Compensation, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/compensation.html, id L16969.
Form and metre
Compensation is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% 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.
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 -A-A-B-B loneliness · wingsA · heart · thingsA · song · lightB · star · nightB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I should be glad of loneliness | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And hours that go on broken wings, | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| A thirsty body, a tired heart | 8 | ·/˘/˘·/· |
| And the unchanging ache of things, | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| If I could make a single song | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| As lovely and as full of light, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| As hushed and brief as a falling star | 9 | ······/˘· |
| On a winter night. | 5 | ··/˘· |
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.