When Fools Dispute
A trickle of dawn insinuated itselfThrough the crevices of black satiation.The elderly trees coughed, lightly, hurriedly,In remonstrance against the invasion.Lean with a virginal poison,The grass-blades shook, immune to light and time.A bird lost in a treeShrilly flirted with its energy....One fool, in the garden, spoke to another.
Words in this poem
- remonstrance n.
- The act of remonstrating; as: (a) A pointing out; manifestation; proof; demonstration. [Cf. OF. remonstrance, F. remonstrance. See Remonstrate.]
- virginal a.
- Of or pertaining to a virgin; becoming a virgin; maidenly. [L. virginalis: cf. F. virginal.]
- shook v. t.
- To pack, as staves, in a shook.
- immune a.
- Exempt; protected by inoculation. [L. immunis. See Immunity.]
- shrilly a.
- Somewhat shrill.
- spoke n.
- The radius or ray of a wheel; one of the small bars which are inserted in the hub, or nave, and which serve to support the rim or felly. [OE. spoke, spake, AS, spaca; akin to D. speek, LG. speke, OHG. speihha, G. speiche. sq. root170. Cf. Spike a nail.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
When Fools Dispute 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, When Fools Dispute, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/when-fools-dispute.html, id L23377.
Form and metre
When Fools Dispute is 9 lines in a single stanza. 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----- itself · satiationA · hurriedly · invasionA · poison · time · tree · energy · another
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A trickle of dawn insinuated itself | 10 | ·/˘··˘/˘˘/ |
| Through the crevices of black satiation. | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| The elderly trees coughed, lightly, hurriedly, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| In remonstrance against the invasion. | 10 | ·˘/˘···˘/˘ |
| Lean with a virginal poison, | 8 | ···/˘˘/˘ |
| The grass-blades shook, immune to light and time. | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| A bird lost in a tree | 6 | ······ |
| Shrilly flirted with its energy.... | 9 | /˘/˘··/˘˘ |
| One fool, in the garden, spoke to another. | 11 | ····/˘··˘/˘ |
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.