Faces
People that I meet and passIn the city's broken roar,Faces that I lose so soonAnd have never found before,
Do you know how much you tellIn the meeting of our eyes,How ashamed I am, and sadTo have pierced your poor disguise?
Secrets rushing without soundCrying from your hiding places--Let me go, I cannot bearThe sorrow of the passing faces.
--People in the restless street,Can it be, oh can it beIn the meeting of our eyesThat you know as much of me?
About this text
Faces 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, Faces, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/faces.html, id L17010.
Form and metre
Faces is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% 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 -A-A pass · roarA · soon · beforeA
- 2 -A-A tell · eyesA · sad · disguiseA
- 3 -A-A sound · placesA · bear · facesA
- 4 -A-A street · beA · eyes · meA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| People that I meet and pass | 7 | /˘····· |
| In the city's broken roar, | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Faces that I lose so soon | 7 | /˘····· |
| And have never found before, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Do you know how much you tell | 7 | ······· |
| In the meeting of our eyes, | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| How ashamed I am, and sad | 8 | ·˘/˘···· |
| To have pierced your poor disguise? | 8 | ···˘··˘/ |
| Secrets rushing without sound | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Crying from your hiding places-- | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| Let me go, I cannot bear | 7 | ····/˘· |
| The sorrow of the passing faces. | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| --People in the restless street, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Can it be, oh can it be | 7 | ······· |
| In the meeting of our eyes | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| That you know as much of me? | 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.