Roosevelt
Workingmen believedHe busted trusts,And put his picture in their windows.“What he’d have done in France!”They said.Perhaps he would—He could have diedPerhaps,Though generals rarely die except in bed,As he did finally.And all the legends that he started in his lifeLive on and prosper,Unhampered now by his existence.
Words in this poem
- prosper v. t.
- To favor; to render successful. [F. prospérer v. i., or L. prosperare, v. i., or L. prosperare, v. t., fr. prosper or prosperus. See Prosperous.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Roosevelt 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, Roosevelt, in Ten Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59603, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemingway-ten-poems/roosevelt.html, id L27120.
Form and metre
Roosevelt is 13 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.
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---- believed · trusts · windows · france · saidA · would · died · perhaps · bedA · finally · life · prosper · existence
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Workingmen believed | 5 | ···˘/ |
| He busted trusts, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| And put his picture in their windows. | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| “What he’d have done in France!” | 6 | ······ |
| They said. | 2 | ·· |
| Perhaps he would— | 4 | ˘/·· |
| He could have died | 4 | ···· |
| Perhaps, | 2 | ˘/ |
| Though generals rarely die except in bed, | 11 | ·/˘˘/˘····· |
| As he did finally. | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
| And all the legends that he started in his life | 12 | ···/˘··/˘··· |
| Live on and prosper, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Unhampered now by his existence. | 9 | ˘/˘···˘/˘ |
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.