Broadway
With sardonic futilityThe multi-coloured crowd,Hurried by fervent sensuality,Flees from something carried on its back.Endlessly subdued, a soundPours up from the crowd,Like some one ever gasping for breathTo utter releasing words.Through the artificial valleyMade by gaudy evasions,The stifled crowd files up and down,Stabbing thought with rapid noises.Women strutting dulcetly,Embroider their unappeased hungers,And men stumble toward a flitting opiate.Sometimes a moment breaks apartAnd one can hear the knucklesOf children rapping on towering doors:Rapping on the highwayWhere civilization paradesIts frozen amiabilities!
Words in this poem
- sardonic a.
- Forced; unnatural; insincere; hence, derisive, mocking, malignant, or bitterly sarcastic; -- applied only to a laugh, smile, or some facial semblance of gayety.
- futility n.
- The quality of being talkative; talkativeness; loquaciousness; loquacity. [L. futilitas: cf. F. futilité.]
- coloured a.
- Having color; tinged; dyed; painted; stained.
- fervent a.
- Hot; glowing; boiling; burning; as, a fervent summer. [F. fervent, L. fervens, -entis. p.pr. of fervere o the boiling hot, to boil, glow.]
- sensuality n.
- The quality or state of being sensual; devotedness to the gratification of the bodily appetites; free indulgence in carnal or sensual pleasures; luxuriousness; voluptuousness; lewdness. [CF. F. sensualité, L. sensualitas sensibility, capacity for sensation.]
- endlessly adv.
- In an endless manner.
- flitting n.
- A flying with lightness and celerity; a fluttering.
- opiate n.
- Originally, a medicine of a thicker consistence than sirup, prepared with opium. Parr. [From Opium: cf.F. opiat.]
- towering a.
- Very high; elevated; rising aloft; as, a towering height.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Broadway 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, Broadway, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/broadway.html, id L23394.
Form and metre
Broadway is 21 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 75%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 -A---A--------------- futility · crowdA · sensuality · back · sound · crowdA · breath · words · valley · evasions · down · noises · dulcetly · hungers · opiate · apart · knuckles · doors · highway · parades · amiabilities
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| With sardonic futility | 8 | ·˘/˘˘/˘˘ |
| The multi-coloured crowd, | 7 | ·/˘/˘˘· |
| Hurried by fervent sensuality, | 9 | /˘·/˘·˘/˘ |
| Flees from something carried on its back. | 9 | ··/˘/˘··· |
| Endlessly subdued, a sound | 8 | /˘˘˘/˘·· |
| Pours up from the crowd, | 5 | ····· |
| Like some one ever gasping for breath | 8 | ···//˘·· |
| To utter releasing words. | 7 | ·/˘˘/˘· |
| Through the artificial valley | 8 | ···˘/˘/˘ |
| Made by gaudy evasions, | 7 | ··/˘˘/˘ |
| The stifled crowd files up and down, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Stabbing thought with rapid noises. | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| Women strutting dulcetly, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Embroider their unappeased hungers, | 9 | ˘/˘····/˘ |
| And men stumble toward a flitting opiate. | 11 | ··/˘···/˘/˘ |
| Sometimes a moment breaks apart | 8 | ˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| And one can hear the knuckles | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Of children rapping on towering doors: | 9 | ·/˘/˘·/˘· |
| Rapping on the highway | 6 | /˘··/· |
| Where civilization parades | 8 | ··˘˘/˘˘/ |
| Its frozen amiabilities! | 9 | ·/˘·˘˘/˘˘ |
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.