Sunset: St. Louis
Hushed in the smoky haze of summer sunset,When I came home again from far-off places,How many times I saw my western cityDream by her river.
Then for an hour the water wore a mantleOf tawny gold and mauve and misted turquoiseUnder the tall and darkened arches bearingGray, high-flung bridges.
Against the sunset, water-towers and steeplesFlickered with fire up the slope to westward,And old warehouses poured their purple shadowsAcross the levee.
High over them the black train swept with thunder,Cleaving the city, leaving far beneath itWharf-boats moored beside the old side-wheelersResting in twilight.
Words in this poem
- levee n.
- The act of rising. [F. lever, fr. lever to raise, se lever to rise. See Lever, n.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sunset: St. Louis 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, Sunset: St. Louis, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/sunset-st-louis.html, id L16965.
Form and metre
Sunset: St. Louis is 16 lines in 4 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is trochaic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.2 syllables. 12 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 hexameter.
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.
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Hushed in the smoky haze of summer sunset, | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/· |
| When I came home again from far-off places, | 11 | ····˘/···/˘ |
| How many times I saw my western city | 10 | ·/····/˘/˘ |
| Dream by her river. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Then for an hour the water wore a mantle | 11 | ···/·/˘··/˘ |
| Of tawny gold and mauve and misted turquoise | 11 | ·/˘····/˘/˘ |
| Under the tall and darkened arches bearing | 11 | ·····/˘/˘/˘ |
| Gray, high-flung bridges. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Against the sunset, water-towers and steeples | 11 | ···/·/˘/·/˘ |
| Flickered with fire up the slope to westward, | 10 | /˘·/····/˘ |
| And old warehouses poured their purple shadows | 11 | ··/·˘··/˘/· |
| Across the levee. | 5 | ˘/·/˘ |
| High over them the black train swept with thunder, | 10 | ········/˘ |
| Cleaving the city, leaving far beneath it | 11 | /˘·/˘/˘···· |
| Wharf-boats moored beside the old side-wheelers | 10 | ···˘/···/˘ |
| Resting in twilight. | 5 | /˘·/· |
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.