Maceo
Maceo dead! a thrill of sorrowThrough our hearts in sadness ranWhen we felt in one sad hourThat the world had lost a man.
He had clasped unto his bosomThe sad fortunes of his land--Held the cause for which he perishedWith a firm, unfaltering hand.
Words in this poem
- sadness n.
- Heaviness; firmness.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Maceo is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #679; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Maceo, in Poems (1854–1871), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #679, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/harper-poems/maceo.html, id L10624.
Form and metre
Maceo is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 62% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 sorrow · ranA · hour · manA
- 2 -A-A bosom · landA · perished · handA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Maceo dead! a thrill of sorrow | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Through our hearts in sadness ran | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| When we felt in one sad hour | 8 | ······/˘ |
| That the world had lost a man. | 7 | ······· |
| He had clasped unto his bosom | 8 | ······/˘ |
| The sad fortunes of his land-- | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Held the cause for which he perished | 8 | ······/˘ |
| With a firm, unfaltering hand. | 8 | ········ |
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.