Peace
Peace flows into meAs the tide to the pool by the shore;It is mine forevermore,It will not ebb like the sea.
I am the pool of blueThat worships the vivid sky;My hopes were heaven-high,They are all fulfilled in you.
I am the pool of goldWhen sunset burns and dies--You are my deepening skies;Give me your stars to hold.
About this text
Peace 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, Peace, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/peace.html, id L08089.
Form and metre
Peace is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.7 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 ABBA meA · shoreB · forevermoreB · seaA
- 2 ABBA blueA · skyB · highB · youA
- 3 ABBA goldA · diesB · skiesB · holdA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Peace flows into me | 5 | ····· |
| As the tide to the pool by the shore; | 9 | ········· |
| It is mine forevermore, | 7 | ······· |
| It will not ebb like the sea. | 7 | ······· |
| I am the pool of blue | 6 | ······ |
| That worships the vivid sky; | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| My hopes were heaven-high, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| They are all fulfilled in you. | 8 | ···˘/˘·· |
| I am the pool of gold | 6 | ······ |
| When sunset burns and dies-- | 6 | ·/···· |
| You are my deepening skies; | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| Give me your stars to hold. | 6 | ······ |
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.