In a Cuban Garden
Hibiscus flowers are cups of fire,(Love me, my lover, life will not stay)The bright poinsettia shakes in the wind,A scarlet leaf is blowing away.
A lizard lifts his head and listens--Kiss me before the noon goes by,Here in the shade of the ceiba hide meFrom the great black vulture circling the sky.
Words in this poem
- poinsettia n.
- A Mexican shrub (Euphorbia pulcherrima) with very large and conspicuous vermilion bracts below the yellowish flowers. [NL. Named after Joel R. Poinsett of South Carolina.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
In a Cuban Garden 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, In a Cuban Garden, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/in-a-cuban-garden.html, id L20806.
Form and metre
In a Cuban Garden is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.6 syllables. 4 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 pentameter.
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 fire · stayA · wind · awayA
- 2 -AAA listens · byA · meA · skyA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Hibiscus flowers are cups of fire, | 9 | ˘/˘/···/˘ |
| (Love me, my lover, life will not stay) | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| The bright poinsettia shakes in the wind, | 9 | ··˘/˘···· |
| A scarlet leaf is blowing away. | 9 | ·/˘··/˘˘/ |
| A lizard lifts his head and listens-- | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| Kiss me before the noon goes by, | 8 | ········ |
| Here in the shade of the ceiba hide me | 10 | ·········· |
| From the great black vulture circling the sky. | 10 | ····/˘/˘·· |
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.