Analysis of August

Dorothy Parker 1893 (Long Branch) – 1967 (New York City)



When my eyes are weeds,
And my lips are petals, spinning
Down the wind that has beginning
Where the crumpled beeches start
In a fringe of salty reeds;
When my arms are elder-bushes,
And the rangy lilac pushes
Upward, upward through my heart;

Summer, do your worst!
Light your tinsel moon, and call on
Your performing stars to fall on
Headlong through your paper sky;
Nevermore shall I be cursed
By a flushed and amorous slattern,
With her dusty laces' pattern
Trailing, as she straggles by.


Scheme ABBCADDC EFFGEFXG
Poetic Form
Metre 11111 01111010 10111010 101011 0011101 11111010 0010110 1010111 10111 11101011 10101111 111101 101111 10101001 10101010 101111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 483
Words 88
Sentences 3
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 8
Lines Amount 16
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 195
Words per stanza (avg) 43
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 19, 2023

26 sec read
142

Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. more…

All Dorothy Parker poems | Dorothy Parker Books

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