The Lamp
If I can bear your love like a lamp before me,When I go down the long steep Road of Darkness,I shall not fear the everlasting shadows,Nor cry in terror.
If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,A lamp in darkness.
Words in this poem
- 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
The Lamp 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 Lamp, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/the-lamp.html, id L08099.
Form and metre
The Lamp is 8 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.5 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| If I can bear your love like a lamp before me, | 12 | ············ |
| When I go down the long steep Road of Darkness, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| I shall not fear the everlasting shadows, | 11 | ······˘/˘/· |
| Nor cry in terror. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| If I can find out God, then I shall find Him, | 11 | ··········· |
| If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me, | 11 | /˘······˘/· |
| A lamp in darkness. | 5 | ···/˘ |
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.