Foundry Workers
Brown faces twisted backInto an ecstasy of tight resistance;Eyes that are huge sweat dropsUnheeded by the struggle underneath them--Throughout the night you stagger under wallsWhere life is squeezed to squealing bitterness.Beneath your heaving flash of limbsYour thoughts are smashed to a dejected tranceAnd you are swept, like empty mites,Into a glistening frenzy of motion....Yet, on a Sunday afternoonI have seen you straightening your backs with slow smiles;Walking through the streetsAnd patiently groping for lost outlines.Your lips were placid bruisesAlmost fearing to relax,And often out upon some greenYour legs swung themselves into long lost shapes.
Perhaps upon your death-bedsYou will lift your hands, with a wraith of grace,Showing life a last, weak curveOf the rhythm he could not kill.
Words in this poem
- afternoon n.
- The part of the day which follows noon, between noon and evening.
- backs n.
- Among leather dealers, the thickest and stoutest tanned hides.
- patiently adv.
- In a patient manner.
- placid a.
- Pleased; contented; unruffied; undisturbed; serene; peaceful; tranquil; quiet; gentle. [L. placidus, originally, pleasing, mild, from placere to please: cf. F. placide. See Please.]
- wraith n.
- An apparition of a person in his exact likeness, seen before death, or a little after; hence, an apparition; a specter; a vision; an unreal image. [Scot. wraith, warth; probably originally, a guardian angel, from Icel. vörthr a warden, guardian, akin to E. ward. See Ward a guard.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Foundry Workers 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, Foundry Workers, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/foundry-workers.html, id L23367.
Form and metre
Foundry Workers is 22 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------- back · resistance · drops · them · walls · bitterness · limbs · trance · mites · motionA · afternoonA · smiles · streets · outlines · bruises · relax · green · shapes
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Brown faces twisted back | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Into an ecstasy of tight resistance; | 10 | ···/˘··˘/˘ |
| Eyes that are huge sweat drops | 6 | ······ |
| Unheeded by the struggle underneath them-- | 11 | ˘/˘··/˘·˘/· |
| Throughout the night you stagger under walls | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Where life is squeezed to squealing bitterness. | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Beneath your heaving flash of limbs | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Your thoughts are smashed to a dejected trance | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| And you are swept, like empty mites, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Into a glistening frenzy of motion.... | 10 | ···/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Yet, on a Sunday afternoon | 8 | ···/··˘/ |
| I have seen you straightening your backs with slow smiles; | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| Walking through the streets | 5 | /˘··· |
| And patiently groping for lost outlines. | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/· |
| Your lips were placid bruises | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Almost fearing to relax, | 7 | /·/˘·˘/ |
| And often out upon some green | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Your legs swung themselves into long lost shapes. | 10 | ···˘/····· |
| Perhaps upon your death-beds | 7 | ˘/····· |
| You will lift your hands, with a wraith of grace, | 10 | ·········· |
| Showing life a last, weak curve | 7 | /˘····· |
| Of the rhythm he could not kill. | 8 | ··/˘···· |
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.