Apology
The beauty ofthe terrible facesof our nonentitiesstirs me to it:
colored womenday workers--old and experienced--returning home at duskin cast off clothingfaces likeold Florentine oak.
About this text
Apology is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Book of Poems, Al Que Quiere!, Project Gutenberg ebook #51997; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Carlos Williams, Apology, in Al Que Quiere! (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51997, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-al-que-quiere/apology.html, id L01098.
Form and metre
Apology is 11 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 4.8 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 64% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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.
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The beauty of | 4 | ·/˘· |
| the terrible faces | 6 | ·/˘˘/˘ |
| of our nonentities | 7 | ·/˘˘/˘˘ |
| stirs me to it: | 4 | ···· |
| colored women | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| day workers-- | 3 | ·/˘ |
| old and experienced-- | 6 | ··˘/˘˘ |
| returning home at dusk | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| in cast off clothing | 5 | ···/˘ |
| faces like | 3 | /˘· |
| old Florentine oak. | 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.