The Net
I made you many and many a song,Yet never one told all you are--It was as though a net of wordsWere flung to catch a star;
It was as though I curved my handAnd dipped sea-water eagerly,Only to find it lost the blueDark splendor of the sea.
About this text
The Net 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 Net, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/the-net.html, id L16973.
Form and metre
The Net is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 1 line ends 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 tetrameter.
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 song · areA · words · starA
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I made you many and many a song, | 8 | ···/·/·· |
| Yet never one told all you are-- | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| It was as though a net of words | 8 | ········ |
| Were flung to catch a star; | 6 | ······ |
| It was as though I curved my hand | 8 | ········ |
| And dipped sea-water eagerly, | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
| Only to find it lost the blue | 8 | /˘······ |
| Dark splendor of the sea. | 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.