Equipment
With what thou gavest me, O Master,I have wrought.Such chances, such abilities,To see the end was not for my poor eyes,Thine was the impulse, thine the forming thought.
Ah, I have wrought,And these sad hands have right to tell their story,It was no hard up striving after glory,Catching and losing, gaining and failing,Raging me back at the world's raucous railing.Simply and humbly from stone and from wood,Wrought I the things that to thee might seem good.
If they are little, ah God! but the cost,Who but thou knowest the all that is lost!If they are few, is the workmanship true?Try them and weigh me, whate'er be my due!
Words in this poem
- raucous a.
- Hoarse; harsh; rough; as, a raucous, thick tone. [L. raucus.]
- humbly adv.
- With humility; lowly.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Equipment is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Project Gutenberg ebook #18338; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Paul Laurence Dunbar, Equipment, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/equipment.html, id L00881.
Form and metre
Equipment is 16 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 75% of the lines. 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.2 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 -ABBA master · wroughtA · abilitiesB · eyesB · thoughtA
- 2 -AABBCC wrought · storyA · gloryA · failingB · railingB · woodC · goodC
- 3 AABB costA · lostA · trueB · dueB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| With what thou gavest me, O Master, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| I have wrought. | 3 | ··· |
| Such chances, such abilities, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| To see the end was not for my poor eyes, | 10 | ·········· |
| Thine was the impulse, thine the forming thought. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Ah, I have wrought, | 4 | ···· |
| And these sad hands have right to tell their story, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| It was no hard up striving after glory, | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| Catching and losing, gaining and failing, | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Raging me back at the world's raucous railing. | 11 | /˘·····/˘/˘ |
| Simply and humbly from stone and from wood, | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Wrought I the things that to thee might seem good. | 10 | ·········· |
| If they are little, ah God! but the cost, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Who but thou knowest the all that is lost! | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| If they are few, is the workmanship true? | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| Try them and weigh me, whate'er be my due! | 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.