Debtor
So long as my spirit stillIs glad of breathAnd lifts its plumes of prideIn the dark face of death;While I am curious stillOf love and fame,Keeping my heart too highFor the years to tame,How can I quarrel with fateSince I can seeI am a debtor to life,Not life to me?
Words in this poem
- curious a.
- Difficult to please or satisfy; solicitous to be correct; careful; scrupulous; nice; exact. [OF. curios, curius, F. curieux, L. curiosus careful, inquisitive, fr. cura care. See Cure.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Debtor 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, Debtor, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/debtor.html, id L17029.
Form and metre
Debtor is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.6 syllables. 58% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 AB-BACDC-D-D stillA · breathB · pride · deathB · stillA · fameC · highD · tameC · fate · seeD · life · meD
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| So long as my spirit still | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Is glad of breath | 4 | ···· |
| And lifts its plumes of pride | 6 | ······ |
| In the dark face of death; | 6 | ······ |
| While I am curious still | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| Of love and fame, | 4 | ···· |
| Keeping my heart too high | 6 | /˘···· |
| For the years to tame, | 5 | ····· |
| How can I quarrel with fate | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Since I can see | 4 | ···· |
| I am a debtor to life, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Not life to me? | 4 | ···· |
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.