Joy
I went to look for Joy,Slim, dancing Joy,Gay, laughing Joy,Bright-eyed Joy,—And I found herDriving the butcher’s cartIn the arms of the butcher boy!Such company, such company,As keeps this young nymph, Joy!
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Joy is in the public domain. This text is taken from The weary blues, Project Gutenberg ebook #74745; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Langston Hughes, Joy, in The Weary Blues (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #74745, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hughes-weary-blues/joy.html, id L01508.
Form and metre
Joy is 9 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in trochaic trimeter. 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.4 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 22% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 AAAA--A-A joyA · joyA · joyA · joyA · her · cart · boyA · company · joyA
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I went to look for Joy, | 6 | ······ |
| Slim, dancing Joy, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Gay, laughing Joy, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Bright-eyed Joy,— | 3 | ··· |
| And I found her | 4 | ···· |
| Driving the butcher’s cart | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| In the arms of the butcher boy! | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Such company, such company, | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘˘ |
| As keeps this young nymph, Joy! | 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.