New Love and Old
In my heart the old loveStruggled with the new;It was ghostly wakingAll night through.
Dear things, kind things,That my old love said,Ranged themselves reproachfullyRound my bed.
But I could not heed them,For I seemed to seeThe eyes of my new loveFixed on me.
Old love, old love,How can I be true?Shall I be faithless to myselfOr to you?
Words in this poem
- ghostly a.
- Relating to the soul; not carnal or secular; spiritual; as, a ghostly confessor. [OE. gastlich, gostlich, AS. gastlic. See Ghost.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
New Love and Old 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, New Love and Old, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/new-love-and-old.html, id L08057.
Form and metre
New Love and Old is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 love · newA · waking · throughA
- 2 -A-A things · saidA · reproachfully · bedA
- 3 -A-A them · seeA · love · meA
- 4 -A-A love · trueA · myself · youA
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| In my heart the old love | 6 | ······ |
| Struggled with the new; | 5 | /˘··· |
| It was ghostly waking | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| All night through. | 3 | ··· |
| Dear things, kind things, | 4 | ···· |
| That my old love said, | 5 | ····· |
| Ranged themselves reproachfully | 8 | ·˘˘/···· |
| Round my bed. | 3 | ··· |
| But I could not heed them, | 6 | ······ |
| For I seemed to see | 5 | ····· |
| The eyes of my new love | 6 | ······ |
| Fixed on me. | 3 | ··· |
| Old love, old love, | 4 | ···· |
| How can I be true? | 5 | ····· |
| Shall I be faithless to myself | 8 | ···/˘··/ |
| Or to you? | 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.