Rattle-Snake Mountain Dialogue
Every night the sky grips my shoulder, in pain.The cows upon my slopeAttack their blades of grass with less decision.The boulders reaching in to form my ribs,Are touched by evening dizziness, to dust,And lose their fierce pretence of hardness.Three crows in a rowSearch for clearer tongues, with steady discords.
The nervous dissolutionWhich men call beauty standsSternly watching itself.
Evening, staggering under dead men’s tongues,Makes light of my loneliness.He comes like a madman dissolvedInto unbearable quietness.But, drinking my vigorous muteness,He melts into that stream of seeking motionWhich men call morning.
You teach him to make his recompenseA solitary unfoldingWalking perilouslyBetween the scowls of life and death.
When he goes he is something more than himself.He holds a lean alertnessThat, green as any leaf,Takes the flutterings of life, unperturbed.
Beauty is a proud stareChallenging all things to removeTheir inattentive clamours:And some things bow abruptly,Timidly stroking their untouched skins.
And thus evening bows into morning.
Words in this poem
- dizziness n.
- Giddiness; a whirling sensation in the head; vertigo. [AS. dysigness folly. See Dizzy.]
- pretence n.
- The act of laying claim; the claim laid; assumption; pretension. [LL. praetensus, for L. praetentus, p. p. of praetendere. See Pretend, and cf. Tension.]
- clearer n.
- One who, or that which, clears.
- sternly adv.
- In a stern manner.
- loneliness n.
- The condition of being lonely; solitude; seclusion.
- muteness n.
- The quality or state of being mute; speechlessness.
- alertness n.
- The quality of being alert or on the alert; briskness; nimbleness; activity.
- stroking n.
- The act of rubbing gently with the hand, or of smoothing; a stroke.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Rattle-Snake Mountain Dialogue 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, Rattle-Snake Mountain Dialogue, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/rattle-snake-mountain-dialogue.html, id L23384.
Form and metre
Rattle-Snake Mountain Dialogue is 32 lines in 7 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 A-A----- painA · slope · decisionA · ribs · dust · hardness · row · discords
- 3 -A-AA-- tongues · lonelinessA · dissolved · quietnessA · mutenessA · motion · morning
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Every night the sky grips my shoulder, in pain. | 11 | /˘·····/˘·· |
| The cows upon my slope | 6 | ······ |
| Attack their blades of grass with less decision. | 11 | ˘/······˘/˘ |
| The boulders reaching in to form my ribs, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Are touched by evening dizziness, to dust, | 9 | ···/˘/˘·· |
| And lose their fierce pretence of hardness. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Three crows in a row | 5 | ····· |
| Search for clearer tongues, with steady discords. | 10 | ··/˘··/˘/˘ |
| The nervous dissolution | 7 | ·/˘·˘/˘ |
| Which men call beauty stands | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Sternly watching itself. | 6 | /˘/˘˘/ |
| Evening, staggering under dead men’s tongues, | 9 | /˘/˘····· |
| Makes light of my loneliness. | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| He comes like a madman dissolved | 8 | ····/·˘/ |
| Into unbearable quietness. | 9 | ··˘/˘˘/˘˘ |
| But, drinking my vigorous muteness, | 9 | ·/˘·/˘˘/˘ |
| He melts into that stream of seeking motion | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| Which men call morning. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| You teach him to make his recompense | 9 | ······/˘· |
| A solitary unfolding | 8 | ·/˘·˘˘/˘ |
| Walking perilously | 6 | /˘/˘˘˘ |
| Between the scowls of life and death. | 8 | ········ |
| When he goes he is something more than himself. | 11 | ·····/˘··˘/ |
| He holds a lean alertness | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| That, green as any leaf, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Takes the flutterings of life, unperturbed. | 9 | ··/˘···˘/ |
| Beauty is a proud stare | 6 | /˘···· |
| Challenging all things to remove | 8 | /˘˘···˘/ |
| Their inattentive clamours: | 7 | ··˘/˘/˘ |
| And some things bow abruptly, | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Timidly stroking their untouched skins. | 8 | /˘/˘·˘/· |
| And thus evening bows into morning. | 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.