On the Bus
Sitting on the top of the 'bus,I bite my pipe and look at the sky.Over my shoulder the smoke streams outAnd my life with it."Conservation of energy," you say.But I burn, I tell you, I burn;And the smoke of me streams outIn a vanishing skein of grey.Crash and bump ... my poor bruised body!I am a harp of twittering strings,An elegant instrument, but infinitely second-hand,And if I have not got phthisis it is only an accident.Droll phenomena!
Words in this poem
- conservation n.
- The act of preserving, guarding, or protecting; the keeping (of a thing) in a safe or entire state; preservation. [L. conservatio: cf. F. conservation.]
- bump v. t.
- To strike, as with or against anything large or solid; to thump; as, to bump the head against a wall. [Cf. W. pwmp round mass, pwmpiaw to thump, bang, and E. bum, v.i., boom to roar.]
- twittering n.
- The act of one who, or that which, twitters.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On the Bus is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #24364; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Aldous Huxley, On the Bus, in The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24364, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/huxley-defeat-of-youth/on-the-bus.html, id L22033.
Form and metre
On the Bus is 13 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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-B-AB----- bus · sky · outA · it · sayB · burn · outA · greyB · body · strings · hand · accident · phenomena
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Sitting on the top of the 'bus, | 8 | /˘······ |
| I bite my pipe and look at the sky. | 9 | ········· |
| Over my shoulder the smoke streams out | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| And my life with it. | 5 | ····· |
| "Conservation of energy," you say. | 10 | ·˘/˘·/˘˘·· |
| But I burn, I tell you, I burn; | 8 | ········ |
| And the smoke of me streams out | 7 | ······· |
| In a vanishing skein of grey. | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| Crash and bump ... my poor bruised body! | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| I am a harp of twittering strings, | 9 | ·····/˘˘· |
| An elegant instrument, but infinitely second-hand, | 11 | ·/˘/˘·/˘/˘· |
| And if I have not got phthisis it is only an accident. | 15 | ······/˘··/˘·/˘ |
| Droll phenomena! | 5 | ·˘/˘˘ |
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.