To E
I have remembered beauty in the night,Against black silences I waked to seeA shower of sunlight over ItalyAnd green Ravello dreaming on her height;I have remembered music in the dark,The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,And running water singing on the rocksWhen once in English woods I heard a lark.
But all remembered beauty is no moreThan a vague prelude to the thought of you--You are the rarest soul I ever knew,Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,And when I think of you, I am at rest.
About this text
To E 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, To E, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/to-e.html, id L08029.
Form and metre
To E is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.7 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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--AB--B nightA · see · italy · heightA · darkB · bach's · rocks · larkB
- 2 ABBCAC moreA · youB · knewB · bestC · shoreA · restC
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I have remembered beauty in the night, | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| Against black silences I waked to see | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| A shower of sunlight over Italy | 11 | ·/˘·/···/˘˘ |
| And green Ravello dreaming on her height; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| I have remembered music in the dark, | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And running water singing on the rocks | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| When once in English woods I heard a lark. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But all remembered beauty is no more | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| Than a vague prelude to the thought of you-- | 10 | ···/······ |
| You are the rarest soul I ever knew, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Lover of beauty, knightliest and best; | 9 | /˘·/˘···· |
| My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore, | 10 | ·········· |
| And when I think of you, I am at rest. | 10 | ·········· |
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.