The Giver
You bound strong sandals on my feet,You gave me bread and wine,And sent me under sun and stars,For all the world was mine.
Oh, take the sandals off my feet,You know not what you do;For all my world is in your arms,My sun and stars are you.
About this text
The Giver 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, The Giver, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/the-giver.html, id L08080.
Form and metre
The Giver is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables.
See other poems in common measure.
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 feet · wineA · stars · mineA
- 2 -A-A feet · doA · arms · 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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| You bound strong sandals on my feet, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| You gave me bread and wine, | 6 | ······ |
| And sent me under sun and stars, | 8 | ········ |
| For all the world was mine. | 6 | ······ |
| Oh, take the sandals off my feet, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| You know not what you do; | 6 | ······ |
| For all my world is in your arms, | 8 | ········ |
| My sun and stars are you. | 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.