The Mountebank Criticizes
I lose all sense of profiles,Strolling through your greys and blacks and browns!No man bestows his orange robeSoberly upon your uncoloured pavements,Rebuking life for being death.No woman taunts her sorrowsWith a coloured haughtiness.When you take to colours, you are ashamed,Like pages nibbling at a pilfered tart.You go back quickly to your coldness.And since you have no colours on your clothes,You walk in straight and measured liltsAs befits the seriously blind.Your women do not stroll as thoughEach step were a timid intrigueWoven into the climax to which they fare.Pistols, rhapsodies and heavy odoursDrugged the lustre of my time.Yet, we had a virtue.We lavished colours on our backsAnd ravished our sorrow with brightnessThat often gave a lightness to our feet!
Words in this poem
- blacks n.
- The name of a kind of in used in copperplate printing, prepared from the charred husks of the grape, and residue of the wine press.
- soberly a.
- Grave; serious; solemn; sad.
- coloured a.
- Having color; tinged; dyed; painted; stained.
- lustre n.
- A period of five years; a lustrum. [L. lustrum: cf. F. lustre.]
- backs n.
- Among leather dealers, the thickest and stoutest tanned hides.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Mountebank Criticizes 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, The Mountebank Criticizes, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/the-mountebank-criticizes.html, id L23388.
Form and metre
The Mountebank Criticizes is 22 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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------------ profiles · browns · robe · pavements · death · sorrows · haughtinessA · ashamed · tart · coldnessA · clothes · lilts · blind · though · intrigue · fare · odours · time · virtue · backs · brightness · feet
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 lose all sense of profiles, | 7 | ·····/· |
| Strolling through your greys and blacks and browns! | 9 | /˘······· |
| No man bestows his orange robe | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Soberly upon your uncoloured pavements, | 10 | /˘······/˘ |
| Rebuking life for being death. | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| No woman taunts her sorrows | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| With a coloured haughtiness. | 8 | ··/˘˘/˘˘ |
| When you take to colours, you are ashamed, | 10 | ····/˘··˘/ |
| Like pages nibbling at a pilfered tart. | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| You go back quickly to your coldness. | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| And since you have no colours on your clothes, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| You walk in straight and measured lilts | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| As befits the seriously blind. | 8 | ·˘/·/˘˘· |
| Your women do not stroll as though | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Each step were a timid intrigue | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Woven into the climax to which they fare. | 11 | /˘···/····· |
| Pistols, rhapsodies and heavy odours | 9 | /˘/˘·/˘/˘ |
| Drugged the lustre of my time. | 8 | ·˘·/˘··· |
| Yet, we had a virtue. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| We lavished colours on our backs | 8 | ·/˘/˘·/· |
| And ravished our sorrow with brightness | 9 | ···//˘·/˘ |
| That often gave a lightness to our feet! | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·/· |
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.