After Parting
Oh, I have sown my love so wideThat he will find it everywhere;It will awake him in the night,It will enfold him in the air.
I set my shadow in his sightAnd I have winged it with desire,That it may be a cloud by day,And in the night a shaft of fire.
Words in this poem
- enfold v. t.
- To infold. See Infold.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
After Parting 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 Parting, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/after-parting.html, id L08051.
Form and metre
After Parting is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 2 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 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 wide · everywhereA · night · airA
- 2 -A-A sight · desireA · day · fireA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oh, I have sown my love so wide | 8 | ········ |
| That he will find it everywhere; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| It will awake him in the night, | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| It will enfold him in the air. | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| I set my shadow in his sight | 8 | ···/···· |
| And I have winged it with desire, | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| That it may be a cloud by day, | 8 | ········ |
| And in the night a shaft of fire. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
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.