Summer Night, Riverside
In the wild, soft summer darknessHow many and many a night we two togetherSat in the park and watched the HudsonWearing her lights like golden spanglesGlinting on black satin.The rail along the curving pathwayWas low in a happy place to let us cross,And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloomSheltered us,While your kisses and the flowers,Falling, falling,Tangled my hair. . . .The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.
And now, far offIn the fragrant darknessThe tree is tremulous again with bloom,For June comes back.
To-night what girlDreamily before her mirror shakes from her hairThis year's blossoms, clinging in its coils?
Words in this poem
- pathway n.
- A footpath; a beaten track; any path or course. Also used figuratively.
- dreamily adv.
- As if in a dream; softly; slowly; languidly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Summer Night, Riverside 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, Summer Night, Riverside, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/summer-night-riverside.html, id L08064.
Form and metre
Summer Night, Riverside is 20 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 53% 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In the wild, soft summer darkness | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| How many and many a night we two together | 11 | ·/·/····˘/˘ |
| Sat in the park and watched the Hudson | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Wearing her lights like golden spangles | 9 | /˘···/˘/˘ |
| Glinting on black satin. | 6 | /˘··/˘ |
| The rail along the curving pathway | 9 | ··˘/·/˘/· |
| Was low in a happy place to let us cross, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom | 10 | ·········· |
| Sheltered us, | 3 | /˘· |
| While your kisses and the flowers, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Falling, falling, | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| Tangled my hair. . . . | 4 | /˘·· |
| The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And now, far off | 4 | ···· |
| In the fragrant darkness | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| The tree is tremulous again with bloom, | 9 | ···/˘˘/·· |
| For June comes back. | 4 | ···· |
| To-night what girl | 4 | ···· |
| Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair | 12 | /˘˘···/˘···· |
| This year's blossoms, clinging in its coils? | 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.