Escape
When foxes eat the last gold grape,And the last white antelope is killed,I shall stop fighting and escapeInto a little house I'll build.
But first I'll shrink to fairy size,With a whisper no one understands,Making blind moons of all your eyes,And muddy roads of all your hands.
And you may grope for me in vainIn hollows under the mangrove root,Or where, in apple-scented rain,The silver wasp-nests hang like fruit.
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,]
- mangrove n.
- The name of one or two trees of the genus Rhizophora (R. [Malay manggi-manggi.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Escape is in the public domain. This text is taken from Nets to Catch the Wind, Project Gutenberg ebook #6682; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Elinor Wylie, Escape, in Nets to Catch the Wind (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6682, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wylie-nets/escape.html, id L12769.
Form and metre
Escape is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABAB grapeA · killedB · escapeA · buildB
- 2 ABAB sizeA · understandsB · eyesA · handsB
- 3 ABAB vainA · rootB · rainA · fruitB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When foxes eat the last gold grape, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And the last white antelope is killed, | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| I shall stop fighting and escape | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Into a little house I'll build. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But first I'll shrink to fairy size, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| With a whisper no one understands, | 9 | ··/˘···˘/ |
| Making blind moons of all your eyes, | 8 | /˘······ |
| And muddy roads of all your hands. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And you may grope for me in vain | 8 | ········ |
| In hollows under the mangrove root, | 9 | ·/˘···/·· |
| Or where, in apple-scented rain, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The silver wasp-nests hang like fruit. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
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.