Meadowlarks
In the silver light after a storm,Under dripping boughs of bright new green,I take the low path to hear the meadowlarksAlone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.
What have I to fear in life or deathWho have known three things: the kiss in the night,The white flying joy when a song is born,And meadowlarks whistling in silver light.
Words in this poem
- dripping n.
- A falling in drops, or the sound so made.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Meadowlarks 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, Meadowlarks, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/meadowlarks.html, id L16959.
Form and metre
Meadowlarks is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 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 storm · greenA · meadowlarks · queenA
- 2 -A-A death · nightA · born · lightA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In the silver light after a storm, | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| Under dripping boughs of bright new green, | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks | 11 | ········/˘· |
| Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen. | 12 | ˘/··/˘······ |
| What have I to fear in life or death | 9 | ········· |
| Who have known three things: the kiss in the night, | 10 | ·········· |
| The white flying joy when a song is born, | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| And meadowlarks whistling in silver light. | 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.