Dialogue Between a Past and Present Poet
I wrote of roses on a woman’s breast,Glowing as though her bloodHad welled out to a spellbound fierceness;And the glad, light mixture of her hair.I wrote of God and angels.They stole the simple blush of my desireTo make their isolated triumph human.Knights and kings flooded my song,Catching with their glittering clashThe unheard boldness in my life.Gods and nymphs slipped through my voice,And with the lofty scurrying of their feetSpurned the smirched angers of my days.
You raised an unhurried, church-like escape.You lingered in shimmering idleness;Or lengthened a prayer into a lance;Or strengthened a thought till it heaved off all of lifeAnd dropped its sightless heaven into your smile.Life, to us, is a colourless tangle.Like madly gorgeous weaversOur eyes reiterate themselves on life.
My towering simplicityLoosening an evening of beliefOver the things it dared not view,Gladly shunned realityJust as your mad weaver does.
Reality is a formless lure,And only when we know thisDo we dare to be unreal.
Words in this poem
- wrote v. i.
- To root with the snout. See 1st Root. [OE. wroten. See 1st Root.]
- spellbound a.
- Bound by, or as by, a spell.
- stole n.
- A long, loose garment reaching to the feet. [AS. stole, L. stola, Gr. stall. See Stall.]
- unheard a.
- Not heard; not perceived by the ear; as, words unheard by those present.
- shimmering n.
- A gleam or glimmering.
- sightless a.
- Wanting sight; without sight; blind.
- tangle v. t.
- To unite or knit together confusedly; to interweave or interlock, as threads, so as to make it difficult to unravel the knot; to entangle; to ravel. [A frequentative fr. tang seaweed; hence, to twist like seaweed. See Tang seaweed, and cf. Tangle, n.]
- madly adv.
- In a mad manner; without reason or understanding; wildly. [From Mad, a.]
- gorgeous a.
- Imposing through splendid or various colors; showy; fine; magnificent. [OF. gorgias beautiful, glorious, vain, luxurious; cf. OF. gorgias ruff, neck handkerchief, and F. gorge throat, and se pengorger to assume airs. Cf. Gorge, n.]
- reiterate v. t.
- To repeat again and again; to say or do repeatedly; sometimes, to repeat. [Pref. re- + iterate: cf. F. réitérer, LL. reiterare to question again.]
- towering a.
- Very high; elevated; rising aloft; as, a towering height.
- gladly adv.
- Preferably; by choice. [From Glad, a.]
- formless a.
- Shapeless; without a determinate form; wanting regularity of shape.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Dialogue Between a Past and Present Poet 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, Dialogue Between a Past and Present Poet, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/dialogue-between-a-past-and-present-poet.html, id L23385.
Form and metre
Dialogue Between a Past and Present Poet is 29 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
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.
- 2 ---ABB-A escape · idleness · lance · lifeA · smileB · tangleB · weavers · lifeA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I wrote of roses on a woman’s breast, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Glowing as though her blood | 6 | /˘···· |
| Had welled out to a spellbound fierceness; | 10 | ·····/···· |
| And the glad, light mixture of her hair. | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| I wrote of God and angels. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| They stole the simple blush of my desire | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| To make their isolated triumph human. | 11 | ···/˘·˘/˘/˘ |
| Knights and kings flooded my song, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Catching with their glittering clash | 8 | /˘··/˘˘· |
| The unheard boldness in my life. | 8 | ·˘//˘··· |
| Gods and nymphs slipped through my voice, | 8 | ····˘··· |
| And with the lofty scurrying of their feet | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Spurned the smirched angers of my days. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| You raised an unhurried, church-like escape. | 10 | ···˘/˘··˘/ |
| You lingered in shimmering idleness; | 9 | ·/˘·/˘/˘˘ |
| Or lengthened a prayer into a lance; | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Or strengthened a thought till it heaved off all of life | 12 | ·/˘········· |
| And dropped its sightless heaven into your smile. | 10 | ···/˘/···· |
| Life, to us, is a colourless tangle. | 10 | ········/˘ |
| Like madly gorgeous weavers | 7 | ·/˘/˘/˘ |
| Our eyes reiterate themselves on life. | 10 | /·˘/˘·˘/·· |
| My towering simplicity | 8 | ·/˘˘˘/˘˘ |
| Loosening an evening of belief | 8 | /˘·/˘·˘/ |
| Over the things it dared not view, | 8 | ········ |
| Gladly shunned reality | 8 | /˘·˘˘/˘˘ |
| Just as your mad weaver does. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Reality is a formless lure, | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| And only when we know this | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Do we dare to be unreal. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
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.