Negroes
The loose eyes of an old manShone aloof upon his boyish face;And a sluggish innocenceHugged his dull brown skin.He sang a hymn caught from his eldersAnd his voice resembledA quavering, feverish laughSoftened in a swaying cradle.His life had found a refuge in his voice,And the rest of him was sickly fleshIgnorant of life and death.Like a crushed, excited clownHis mother shuffled out upon the porch.Slowly her dark brown face resolvedInto the hushed and sulky lookOf one who stands within a dim-walled trap.Lazily uncertain,She raised the boy into her arms.Then her voice swung in the airLike a quavering, feverish laughSoftened in a swaying cradle.
Words in this poem
- boyish a.
- Resembling a boy in a manners or opinions; belonging to a boy; childish; trifling; puerile.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Negroes 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, Negroes, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/negroes.html, id L23393.
Form and metre
Negroes is 21 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%).
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 ------AB-----------AB man · face · innocence · skin · elders · resembled · laughA · cradleB · voice · flesh · death · clown · porch · resolved · look · trap · uncertain · arms · air · laughA · cradleB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The loose eyes of an old man | 7 | ······· |
| Shone aloof upon his boyish face; | 9 | ·˘/···/˘· |
| And a sluggish innocence | 7 | ··/˘/˘˘ |
| Hugged his dull brown skin. | 5 | ····· |
| He sang a hymn caught from his elders | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And his voice resembled | 7 | ···˘/˘˘ |
| A quavering, feverish laugh | 8 | ·/˘˘/˘˘· |
| Softened in a swaying cradle. | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| His life had found a refuge in his voice, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And the rest of him was sickly flesh | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Ignorant of life and death. | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| Like a crushed, excited clown | 8 | ···˘˘/˘· |
| His mother shuffled out upon the porch. | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Slowly her dark brown face resolved | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| Into the hushed and sulky look | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Of one who stands within a dim-walled trap. | 10 | ·········· |
| Lazily uncertain, | 6 | /˘˘˘/˘ |
| She raised the boy into her arms. | 8 | ········ |
| Then her voice swung in the air | 7 | ······· |
| Like a quavering, feverish laugh | 8 | ··/˘/˘˘· |
| Softened in a swaying cradle. | 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.