The Master
He fumbles at your spiritAs players at the keysBefore they drop full music on;He stuns you by degrees,
Prepares your brittle substanceFor the ethereal blow,By fainter hammers, further heard,Then nearer, then so slow
Your breath has time to straighten,Your brain to bubble cool, --Deals one imperial thunderboltThat scalps your naked soul.
Words in this poem
- thunderbolt n.
- A shaft of lightning; a brilliant stream of electricity passing from one part of the heavens to another, or from the clouds to the earth.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Master 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, The Master, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/the-master.html, id L03777.
Form and metre
The Master is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is short 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 6.8 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 42% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in short 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 spirit · keysA · on · degreesA
- 2 -A-A substance · blowA · heard · slowA
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 short measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| He fumbles at your spirit | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| As players at the keys | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Before they drop full music on; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| He stuns you by degrees, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Prepares your brittle substance | 7 | ˘/·/˘/˘ |
| For the ethereal blow, | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| By fainter hammers, further heard, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Then nearer, then so slow | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Your breath has time to straighten, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Your brain to bubble cool, -- | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Deals one imperial thunderbolt | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| That scalps your naked soul. | 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.