First Section
The CongoThe Santa Fe TrailThe Firemen's BallThe Master of the DanceThe Mysterious CatA Dirge for a Righteous KittenYankee DoodleThe Black Hawk War of the ArtistsThe Jingo and the MinstrelI Heard Immanuel Singing
Words in this poem
- congo n.
- Black tea, of higher grade (finer leaf and less dusty) than the present bohea. See Tea. [Chin. kung-foo labor.]
- dirge n.
- A piece of music of a mournful character, to accompany funeral rites; a funeral hymn. [Contraction of Lat. dirige, direct thou (imperative of dirigere), the first word of a funeral hymn (Lat. transl. of Psalm v. 8) beginning, "Dirige, Domine, in c]
- doodle n.
- A trifler; a simple fellow. [Cf. Dawdle.]
- jingo n.
- A word used as a jocular oath. [Said to be a corruption of St. Gingoulph.]
- immanuel n.
- God with us; -- an appellation of the Christ. Is. vii. 14. [Heb. 'imman, fr. 'im with + an us + el God.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
First Section is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Congo, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #1021; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Vachel Lindsay, First Section, in The Congo and Other Poems (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1021, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lindsay-congo/first-section.html, id L00931.
Form and metre
First Section is 10 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. 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.8 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 100% 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 --A---A--- congo · trail · ballA · dance · cat · kitten · doodleA · artists · minstrel · singing
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The Congo | 3 | ·/˘ |
| The Santa Fe Trail | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| The Firemen's Ball | 4 | ·/˘· |
| The Master of the Dance | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| The Mysterious Cat | 6 | ·˘/˘˘· |
| A Dirge for a Righteous Kitten | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Yankee Doodle | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| The Black Hawk War of the Artists | 8 | ······/˘ |
| The Jingo and the Minstrel | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| I Heard Immanuel Singing | 7 | ··/˘˘/˘ |
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.