Driftwood
My forefathers gave meMy spirit's shaken flame,The shape of hands, the beat of heart,The letters of my name.
But it was my lovers,And not my sleeping sires,Who gave the flame its changefulAnd iridescent fires;
As the driftwood burningLearned its jewelled blazeFrom the sea's blue splendorOf colored nights and days.
I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,The fragile secret of a flower,Music, the making of a poemThat gave me heaven for an hour;
First stars above a snowy hill,Voices of people kindly and wise,And the great look of love, long hidden,Found at last in meeting eyes.
I have loved much and been loved deeply--Oh when my spirit's fire burns low,Leave me the darkness and the stillness,I shall be tired and glad to go.
Words in this poem
- changeful a.
- Full of change; mutable; inconstant; fickle; uncertain.
- driftwood n.
- Wood drifted or floated by water.
- snowy a.
- White like snow.
- stillness n.
- The quality or state of being still; quietness; silence; calmness; inactivity.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Driftwood 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, Driftwood, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/driftwood.html, id L16960.
Form and metre
Driftwood is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic 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 7.5 syllables. 12 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% 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 me · flameA · heart · nameA
- 2 -A-A lovers · siresA · changeful · firesA
- 3 -A-A burning · blazeA · splendor · daysA
- 4 -A-A cities · flowerA · poem · hourA
- 5 -A-A hill · wiseA · hidden · eyesA
- 6 -A-A deeply · lowA · stillness · goA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My forefathers gave me | 6 | ·/·˘·· |
| My spirit's shaken flame, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| The shape of hands, the beat of heart, | 8 | ········ |
| The letters of my name. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| But it was my lovers, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| And not my sleeping sires, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Who gave the flame its changeful | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And iridescent fires; | 7 | ··˘/˘/˘ |
| As the driftwood burning | 6 | ··/·/˘ |
| Learned its jewelled blaze | 5 | ··/˘· |
| From the sea's blue splendor | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Of colored nights and days. | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
| I have loved hours at sea, gray cities, | 9 | ···/···/˘ |
| The fragile secret of a flower, | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| Music, the making of a poem | 9 | /˘·/˘··/˘ |
| That gave me heaven for an hour; | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| First stars above a snowy hill, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Voices of people kindly and wise, | 9 | /˘·/˘/˘·· |
| And the great look of love, long hidden, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Found at last in meeting eyes. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| I have loved much and been loved deeply-- | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Oh when my spirit's fire burns low, | 8 | ···/˘/·· |
| Leave me the darkness and the stillness, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| I shall be tired and glad to go. | 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.