"The Dreams of My Heart"
The dreams of my heart and my mind pass,Nothing stays with me long,But I have had from a childThe deep solace of song;
If that should ever leave me,Let me find death and stayWith things whose tunes are played out and forgottenLike the rain of yesterday.
Words in this poem
- solace n.
- Comfort in grief; alleviation of grief or anxiety; also, that which relieves in distress; that which cheers or consoles; relief. [OF. solas, ssoulaz, L. solacium, solatium, fr. solari to comfort, console. Cf. Console, v. t.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
"The Dreams of My Heart" 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, "The Dreams of My Heart", in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/the-dreams-of-my-heart.html, id L20804.
Form and metre
"The Dreams of My Heart" is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 pass · longA · child · songA
- 2 -A-A me · stayA · forgotten · yesterdayA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The dreams of my heart and my mind pass, | 9 | ········· |
| Nothing stays with me long, | 6 | /˘···· |
| But I have had from a child | 7 | ······· |
| The deep solace of song; | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| If that should ever leave me, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Let me find death and stay | 6 | ······ |
| With things whose tunes are played out and forgotten | 11 | ········˘/˘ |
| Like the rain of yesterday. | 7 | ····/˘· |
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.