Fifth Avenue (New York)
Seasons bring nothing to this gulchSave a harshly intimate anecdoteScrawled, here and there, on paint and stone.The houses shoulder each otherIn a forced and passionless communion.Their harassed angles riseLike a violent picture-puzzleHiding a story that only ruins could reveal;Their straight lines, robbed of power,Meet in dwarfed rebellion.Sometimes they stand like vastly flattened facesSuffering ants to crawlIn and out of their gaping mouths.Sometimes, in menial attitudesThey stand like Gothic platitudesSlipshodly carved in dark brown stone.Tarnished solemnities of deathCast their transfigured hue on this avenue.The cool and indiscriminate glareOf sunlight seems to desecrate a tomb,And the racing people seemA stream of accidental shadows.Hard noises strike one’s face and makeIt numb with momentary reality,But the noiseless undertone returnsAnd they change to unreal jestsMade by death.
Words in this poem
- gulch n.
- Act of gulching or gulping.
- passionless a.
- Void of passion; without anger or emotion; not easily excited; calm.
- vastly adv.
- To a vast extent or degree; very greatly; immensely. Jer.
- crawl v. i.
- To move slowly by drawing the body along the ground, as a worm; to move slowly on hands and kness; to creep. [Dan. kravle, or Icel. krafla, to paw, scrabble with the hands; akin to Sw. kr to crawl; cf. LG. krabbeln, D. krabbelen to scratch.]
- avenue n.
- A way or opening for entrance into a place; a passage by which a place may by reached; a way of approach or of exit. [F. avenue, fr. avenir to come to, L. advenire. See Advene.]
- glare v. i.
- To shine with a bright, dazzling light. [OE. glaren, gloren; cf. AS. glær amber, LG. glaren to glow or burn like coals, D. gloren to glimmer; prob. akin to E. glass.]
- desecrate v. t.
- To divest of a sacred character or office; to divert from a sacred purpose; to violate the sanctity of; to profane; to put to an unworthy use; -- the opposite of consecrate. [L. desecratus, p. p. of desecrare (also desacrare) to consecrate, dedicate; but taken in the sense if to divest of a sacred character; de- + sacrare to consecra]
- undertone n.
- A low or subdued tone or utterance; a tone less loud than usual.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Fifth Avenue (New York) 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, Fifth Avenue (New York), in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/fifth-avenue-new-york.html, id L23395.
Form and metre
Fifth Avenue (New York) is 27 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
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 --A-A-BB-----CCAD---------D gulch · anecdote · stoneA · other · communionA · rise · puzzleB · revealB · power · rebellion · faces · crawl · mouths · attitudesC · platitudesC · stoneA · deathD · avenue · glare · tomb · seem · shadows · make · reality · returns · jests · deathD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Seasons bring nothing to this gulch | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| Save a harshly intimate anecdote | 9 | ··/˘/˘/˘· |
| Scrawled, here and there, on paint and stone. | 8 | ········ |
| The houses shoulder each other | 8 | ·/˘/˘·/˘ |
| In a forced and passionless communion. | 10 | ····/˘˘˘/˘ |
| Their harassed angles rise | 7 | ·˘/˘/˘· |
| Like a violent picture-puzzle | 9 | ··/˘˘/˘/˘ |
| Hiding a story that only ruins could reveal; | 13 | /˘·/˘·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Their straight lines, robbed of power, | 8 | ····˘·/˘ |
| Meet in dwarfed rebellion. | 7 | ···˘˘/˘ |
| Sometimes they stand like vastly flattened faces | 11 | ˘/···/˘/˘/˘ |
| Suffering ants to crawl | 6 | /˘˘··· |
| In and out of their gaping mouths. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Sometimes, in menial attitudes | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| They stand like Gothic platitudes | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Slipshodly carved in dark brown stone. | 8 | ········ |
| Tarnished solemnities of death | 8 | /˘˘/˘˘·· |
| Cast their transfigured hue on this avenue. | 11 | ········/˘· |
| The cool and indiscriminate glare | 8 | ···˘˘/˘· |
| Of sunlight seems to desecrate a tomb, | 9 | ·/···˘/·· |
| And the racing people seem | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| A stream of accidental shadows. | 9 | ····˘/˘/· |
| Hard noises strike one’s face and make | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| It numb with momentary reality, | 10 | ···/˘·˘˘/˘ |
| But the noiseless undertone returns | 9 | ··/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And they change to unreal jests | 7 | ····˘/· |
| Made by death. | 3 | ··· |
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.