Song for a Banjo Dance
Shake your brown feet, honey,Shake your brown feet, chile,Shake your brown feet, honey,Shake ’em swift and wil’—Get way back, honey,Do that low-down step.Walk on over, darling,Now! Come outWith your left.Shake your brown feet, honey,Shake ’em, honey chile.
Sun’s going down this evening—Might never rise no mo’.The sun’s going down this very night—Might never rise no mo’—So dance with swift feet, honey,(The banjo’s sobbing low)Dance with swift feet, honey—Might never dance no mo’.
Shake your brown feet, Liza,Shake ’em, Liza, chile,Shake your brown feet, Liza,(The music’s soft and wil’)Shake your brown feet, Liza,(The banjo’s sobbing low)The sun’s going down this very night—Might never rise no mo’.
Words in this poem
- sobbing n.
- A series of short, convulsive inspirations, the glottis being suddenly closed so that little or no air enters into the lungs.
- liza n.
- The American white mullet (Mugil curema).
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Song for a Banjo Dance 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, Song for a Banjo Dance, in The Weary Blues (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #74745, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hughes-weary-blues/song-for-a-banjo-dance.html, id L01500.
Form and metre
Song for a Banjo Dance is 27 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.9 syllables. 14 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 ABA-A----AB honeyA · chileB · honeyA · wil · honeyA · step · darling · out · left · honeyA · chileB
- 2 -A-ABABA evening · moA · night · moA · honeyB · lowA · honeyB · moA
- 3 A-A-AB-B lizaA · chile · lizaA · wil · lizaA · lowB · night · moB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Shake your brown feet, honey, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Shake your brown feet, chile, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Shake your brown feet, honey, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Shake ’em swift and wil’— | 5 | ····· |
| Get way back, honey, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Do that low-down step. | 5 | ····· |
| Walk on over, darling, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Now! Come out | 3 | ··· |
| With your left. | 3 | ··· |
| Shake your brown feet, honey, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Shake ’em, honey chile. | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Sun’s going down this evening— | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| Might never rise no mo’. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| The sun’s going down this very night— | 8 | ··/··/˘· |
| Might never rise no mo’— | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| So dance with swift feet, honey, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| (The banjo’s sobbing low) | 6 | ·/·/˘· |
| Dance with swift feet, honey— | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Might never dance no mo’. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Shake your brown feet, Liza, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Shake ’em, Liza, chile, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Shake your brown feet, Liza, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| (The music’s soft and wil’) | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Shake your brown feet, Liza, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| (The banjo’s sobbing low) | 6 | ·/·/˘· |
| The sun’s going down this very night— | 8 | ··/··/˘· |
| Might never rise no mo’. | 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.