To a Man
Master of earnest equilibrium,You are a Christ made delicateBy centuries of baffled meditation.You curve an old myth to a peaceful sword,Like some sleep-walker challengingThe dream that gave him shape.With gentle, antique insistenceYou place your child’s hand on the universeAnd trace a smile of love within its depths.And yet, the whirling scarecrow men have madeOf something that eludes their sight,May have the startling simplicity of your smile.
Once every thousand yearsStillness fades into a shapeThat men may crucify.
Words in this poem
- insistence n.
- The quality of insisting, or being urgent or pressing; the act of dwelling upon as of special importance; persistence; urgency.
- scarecrow n.
- Anything set up to frighten crows or other birds from cornfields; hence, anything terifying without danger.
- stillness n.
- The quality or state of being still; quietness; silence; calmness; inactivity.
- crucify v. t.
- To fasten to a cross; to put to death by nailing the hands and feet to a cross or gibbet. [F. crucifier, fr. (assumed) LL. crucificare, for crucifigere, fr, L. crux, crucis, cross + figere to fix, the ending - figere being changed to -ficare, F. -fier]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To a Man 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, To a Man, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/to-a-man.html, id L23380.
Form and metre
To a Man is 15 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Master of earnest equilibrium, | 9 | /˘·/˘·˘/˘ |
| You are a Christ made delicate | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| By centuries of baffled meditation. | 10 | ·/˘·/˘·˘/˘ |
| You curve an old myth to a peaceful sword, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Like some sleep-walker challenging | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
| The dream that gave him shape. | 6 | ······ |
| With gentle, antique insistence | 8 | ·/˘˘/˘/˘ |
| You place your child’s hand on the universe | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And trace a smile of love within its depths. | 10 | ·········· |
| And yet, the whirling scarecrow men have made | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Of something that eludes their sight, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| May have the startling simplicity of your smile. | 11 | ···/˘˘/˘··· |
| Once every thousand years | 7 | ·/˘˘/˘· |
| Stillness fades into a shape | 7 | /˘····· |
| That men may crucify. | 6 | ···/˘· |
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.