On the Dunes
If there is any life when death is over,These tawny beaches will know much of me,I shall come back, as constant and as changefulAs the unchanging, many-colored sea.
If life was small, if it has made me scornful,Forgive me; I shall straighten like a flameIn the great calm of death, and if you want meStand on the sea-ward dunes and call my name.
Words in this poem
- 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,]
- changeful a.
- Full of change; mutable; inconstant; fickle; uncertain.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On the Dunes 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, On the Dunes, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/on-the-dunes.html, id L17006.
Form and metre
On the Dunes is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% 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 over · meA · changeful · seaA
- 2 -A-A scornful · flameA · me · nameA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| If there is any life when death is over, | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| These tawny beaches will know much of me, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| I shall come back, as constant and as changeful | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| As the unchanging, many-colored sea. | 11 | ··˘/˘/˘/˘˘· |
| If life was small, if it has made me scornful, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Forgive me; I shall straighten like a flame | 10 | ˘/···/˘··· |
| In the great calm of death, and if you want me | 11 | ··········· |
| Stand on the sea-ward dunes and call my name. | 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.