After Love
There is no magic any more,We meet as other people do,You work no miracle for meNor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea--There is no splendor any more,I have grown listless as the poolBeside the shore.
But though the pool is safe from stormAnd from the tide has found surcease,It grows more bitter than the sea,For all its peace.
Words in this poem
- listless a.
- Having no desire or inclination; indifferent; heedless; spiritless. [OE. listles, lustles. See Lust.]
- surcease v. t.
- To cause to cease; to end.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
After Love is in the public domain. This text is taken from Love Songs, Project Gutenberg ebook #442; 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, After Love, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/after-love.html, id L08056.
Form and metre
After Love is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 25% 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 more · doA · me · youA
- 2 -A-A sea · moreA · pool · shoreA
- 3 -A-A storm · surceaseA · sea · peaceA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There is no magic any more, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| We meet as other people do, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| You work no miracle for me | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| Nor I for you. | 4 | ···· |
| You were the wind and I the sea-- | 8 | ········ |
| There is no splendor any more, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| I have grown listless as the pool | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Beside the shore. | 4 | ˘/·· |
| But though the pool is safe from storm | 8 | ········ |
| And from the tide has found surcease, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| It grows more bitter than the sea, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| For all its peace. | 4 | ···· |
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.