Doubt
My soul lives in my body's house,And you have both the house and her--But sometimes she is less your ownThan a wild, gay adventurer;A restless and an eager wraith,How can I tell what she will do--Oh, I am sure of my body's faith,But what if my soul broke faith with you?
Words in this poem
- wraith n.
- An apparition of a person in his exact likeness, seen before death, or a little after; hence, an apparition; a specter; a vision; an unreal image. [Scot. wraith, warth; probably originally, a guardian angel, from Icel. vörthr a warden, guardian, akin to E. ward. See Ward a guard.]
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Doubt 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, Doubt, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/doubt.html, id L08093.
Form and metre
Doubt is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% 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 ----ABAB house · her · own · adventurer · wraithA · doB · faithA · youB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My soul lives in my body's house, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And you have both the house and her-- | 8 | ········ |
| But sometimes she is less your own | 8 | ·˘/····· |
| Than a wild, gay adventurer; | 8 | ····˘/˘˘ |
| A restless and an eager wraith, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| How can I tell what she will do-- | 8 | ········ |
| Oh, I am sure of my body's faith, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| But what if my soul broke faith with you? | 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.