Song Making
My heart cried like a beaten childCeaselessly all night long;I had to take my own criesAnd thread them into a song.
One was a cry at black midnightAnd one when the first cock crew--My heart was like a beaten child,But no one ever knew.
Life, you have put me in your debtAnd I must serve you long--But oh, the debt is terribleThat must be paid in song.
About this text
Song Making 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, Song Making, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/song-making.html, id L17026.
Form and metre
Song Making is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 42% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
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 child · longA · cries · songA
- 2 -A-A midnight · crewA · child · knewA
- 3 -A-A debt · longA · terrible · songA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My heart cried like a beaten child | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Ceaselessly all night long; | 6 | /˘˘··· |
| I had to take my own cries | 7 | ······· |
| And thread them into a song. | 7 | ······· |
| One was a cry at black midnight | 8 | ······/· |
| And one when the first cock crew-- | 7 | ······· |
| My heart was like a beaten child, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| But no one ever knew. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Life, you have put me in your debt | 8 | ········ |
| And I must serve you long-- | 6 | ······ |
| But oh, the debt is terrible | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| That must be paid in song. | 6 | ······ |
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.