Advice to a Blue-Bird
Who can make a delicate adventureOf walking on the ground?Who can make grass-bladesArcades for pertly careless straying?You alone, who skim against these leaves,Turning all desire into light whipsMoulded by your deep blue wing-tips,You who shrill your unconcernInto the sternly antique sky.You to whom all thingsHold an equal kiss of touch.
Mincing, wanton blue-bird,Grimace at the hoofs of passing men.You alone can lose yourselfWithin a sky, and rob it of its blue!
Words in this poem
- pertly adv.
- In a pert manner.
- unconcern n.
- Want of concern; absence of anxiety; freedom from solicitude; indifference.
- sternly adv.
- In a stern manner.
- mincing a.
- That minces; characterized by primness or affected nicety.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Advice to a Blue-Bird is in the public domain. This text is taken from Advice: A Book of Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #60252; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Maxwell Bodenheim, Advice to a Blue-Bird, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/advice-to-a-blue-bird.html, id L23371.
Form and metre
Advice to a Blue-Bird is 15 lines in 2 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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 -----AA---- adventure · ground · blades · straying · leaves · whipsA · tipsA · unconcern · sky · things · touch
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Who can make a delicate adventure | 9 | ····/˘˘/˘ |
| Of walking on the ground? | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Who can make grass-blades | 5 | ····· |
| Arcades for pertly careless straying? | 9 | ˘/·/˘/˘/˘ |
| You alone, who skim against these leaves, | 9 | ·˘/······ |
| Turning all desire into light whips | 9 | /˘·˘/···· |
| Moulded by your deep blue wing-tips, | 8 | /˘······ |
| You who shrill your unconcern | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Into the sternly antique sky. | 8 | ···/˘˘/· |
| You to whom all things | 5 | ····· |
| Hold an equal kiss of touch. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Mincing, wanton blue-bird, | 6 | /˘/˘·· |
| Grimace at the hoofs of passing men. | 9 | /˘····/˘· |
| You alone can lose yourself | 7 | ·˘/··˘/ |
| Within a sky, and rob it of its blue! | 10 | ·········· |
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.