Street Cries
Oft seems the Time a market-townWhere many merchant-spirits meetWho up and down and up and downCry out along the street
Their needs, as wares; one THUS, one SO:Till all the ways are full of sound:-- But still come rain, and sun, and snow,And still the world goes round.
Words in this poem
- needs adv.
- Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; -- often with must, and equivalent to of need. [Orig. gen. of need, used as an adverb. Cf. - wards.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Street Cries is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Sidney Lanier, Project Gutenberg ebook #579; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sidney Lanier, Street Cries, in Poems (1884), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #579, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lanier-poems/street-cries-2.html.
Form and metre
Street Cries is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. 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 ABAB townA · meetB · downA · streetB
- 2 ABAB soA · soundB · snowA · roundB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oft seems the Time a market-town | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Where many merchant-spirits meet | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Who up and down and up and down | 8 | ········ |
| Cry out along the street | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| Their needs, as wares; one THUS, one SO: | 8 | ········ |
| Till all the ways are full of sound: | 8 | ········ |
| -- But still come rain, and sun, and snow, | 8 | ········ |
| And still the world goes round. | 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.