Youth and Beauty
I bought a dishmop--having no daughter--for they had twistedfine ribbons of shining copperabout white twineand made a towsled headof it, fastened itupon a turned ash stickslender at the neckstraight, tall--when tied uprighton the brass wallbracketto be a light for me--and naked,as a girl should seemto her father.
About this text
Youth and Beauty is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #35667; 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, Youth and Beauty, in Sour Grapes (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #35667, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/williams-sour-grapes/youth-and-beauty.html, id L01180.
Form and metre
Youth and Beauty is 16 lines in a single verse paragraph. 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 86%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 4.9 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 62% 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.
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---------- dishmop · daughter · twistedA · copper · twine · headA · it · stick · neck · tall · upright · wallbracket · me · naked · seem · father
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I bought a dishmop-- | 5 | ····· |
| having no daughter-- | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| for they had twisted | 5 | ···/˘ |
| fine ribbons of shining copper | 8 | ·/˘·/˘/˘ |
| about white twine | 4 | ···· |
| and made a towsled head | 5 | ····· |
| of it, fastened it | 5 | ··/˘· |
| upon a turned ash stick | 6 | ······ |
| slender at the neck | 5 | /˘··· |
| straight, tall-- | 2 | ·· |
| when tied upright | 4 | ··˘/ |
| on the brass wallbracket | 6 | ······ |
| to be a light for me-- | 6 | ······ |
| and naked, | 4 | ·/˘˘ |
| as a girl should seem | 5 | ····· |
| to her father. | 4 | ··/˘ |
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.