Mujer
Oh, black Persian cat!Was not your lifealready cursed with offspring?
We took you for rest to that oldYankee farm,--so lonelyand with so many field micein the long grass--and you return to usin this condition--!
Oh, black Persian cat.
Words in this poem
- cursed a.
- Deserving a curse; execrable; hateful; detestable; abominable.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mujer 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, Mujer, in Al Que Quiere! (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51997, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-al-que-quiere/mujer.html, id L01107.
Form and metre
Mujer is 10 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.8 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 56% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 iambic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Oh, black Persian cat! | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Was not your life | 4 | ···· |
| already cursed with offspring? | 7 | ˘/˘··/· |
| We took you for rest to that old | 8 | ········ |
| Yankee farm,--so lonely | 6 | /˘··/˘ |
| and with so many field mice | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| in the long grass-- | 4 | ···· |
| and you return to us | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| in this condition--! | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
| Oh, black Persian cat. | 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.