The Unchanging
Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowingFrom the immense blue circle of the sea,And the soft thunder where long waves whiten--These were the same for Sappho as for me.
Two thousand years--much has gone by forever,Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men--But here on the beaches that time passes overThe heart aches now as then.
Words in this poem
- sappho n.
- Any one of several species of brilliant South American humming birds of the genus Sappho, having very bright-colored and deeply forked tails; -- called also firetail. [See Sapphic.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Unchanging 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 Unchanging, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/the-unchanging.html, id L17004.
Form and metre
The Unchanging is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 75%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.8 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% 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 blowing · seaA · whiten · meA
- 2 -A-A forever · menA · over · thenA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing | 10 | ··/˘····/˘ |
| From the immense blue circle of the sea, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| And the soft thunder where long waves whiten-- | 10 | ···/˘···/˘ |
| These were the same for Sappho as for me. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Two thousand years--much has gone by forever, | 11 | ·/˘·····˘/˘ |
| Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men-- | 10 | ·········· |
| But here on the beaches that time passes over | 11 | ····/˘··/˘· |
| The heart aches now as then. | 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.