I Would Live in Your Love
I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes;I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soulas it leads.
About this text
I Would Live in Your 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, I Would Live in Your Love, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/i-would-live-in-your-love.html, id L08077.
Form and metre
I Would Live in Your Love is 5 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 13.0 syllables.
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 ABA-B seaA · recedesB · meA · soul · leadsB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea, | 15 | ·········/˘···· |
| Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes; | 17 | ·······/˘······˘/ |
| I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me, | 15 | ··/˘·······/˘·· |
| I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul | 15 | ···········/˘·· |
| as it leads. | 3 | ··· |
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.