A Man
Fate slew him, but he did not drop;She felled -- he did not fall --Impaled him on her fiercest stakes --He neutralized them all.
She stung him, sapped his firm advance,But, when her worst was done,And he, unmoved, regarded her,Acknowledged him a man.
Words in this poem
- unmoved a.
- Not moved; fixed; firm; unshaken; calm; apathetic.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Man is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Project Gutenberg ebook #12242; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emily Dickinson, A Man, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/a-man.html, id L03753.
Form and metre
A Man is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables.
See other poems in common measure.
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 drop · fallA · stakes · allA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Fate slew him, but he did not drop; | 8 | ········ |
| She felled -- he did not fall -- | 6 | ······ |
| Impaled him on her fiercest stakes -- | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| He neutralized them all. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| She stung him, sapped his firm advance, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| But, when her worst was done, | 6 | ······ |
| And he, unmoved, regarded her, | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| Acknowledged him a man. | 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.