Mitraigliatrice
The mills of the gods grind slowly;But this millChatters in mechanical staccato.Ugly short infantry of the mind,Advancing over difficult terrain,Make this CoronaTheir mitrailleuse.
Words in this poem
- infantry n.
- A body of children. B. Jonson. [F. infanterie, It. infanteria, fr. infante infant, child, boy servant, foot soldier, fr. L. infans, -antis, child; foot soldiers being formerly the servants and]
- mitrailleuse n.
- A breech-loading machine gun consisting of a number of barrels fitted together, so arranged that the barrels can be fired simultaneously, or successively, and rapidly. [F., fr. mitrailler to fire grapeshot, fr. mitraille old iron, grapeshot, dim. of OF. mite a mite.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mitraigliatrice is in the public domain. This text is taken from Three Stories & Ten Poems (poems only), Project Gutenberg ebook #59603; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ernest Hemingway, Mitraigliatrice, in Ten Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59603, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemingway-ten-poems/mitraigliatrice.html, id L27117.
Form and metre
Mitraigliatrice is 7 lines in a single stanza.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The mills of the gods grind slowly; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| But this mill | 3 | ··· |
| Chatters in mechanical staccato. | 10 | /˘·˘/˘˘˘/· |
| Ugly short infantry of the mind, | 9 | /˘·/˘˘··· |
| Advancing over difficult terrain, | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘˘˘/ |
| Make this Corona | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
| Their mitrailleuse. | 4 | ···· |
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.