What the Miner in the Desert Said
The moon's a brass-hooped water-keg,A wondrous water-feast.If I could climb the ridge and drinkAnd give drink to my beast;If I could drain that keg, the fliesWould not be biting so,My burning feet be spry again,My mule no longer slow.And I could rise and dig for ore,And reach my fatherland,And not be food for ants and hawksAnd perish in the sand.
Words in this poem
- wondrous adv.
- In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully. [OE. wonders, adv. (later also adj.). See Wonder, n., and cf. -wards.]
- spry a.
- Having great power of leaping or running; nimble; active. [U.S. [Cf. dial. Sw. sprygg lively, skittish, and E. sprag.]
- fatherland n.
- One's native land; the native land of one's fathers or ancestors. [Imitated fr. D. vaderland. See Father, and Land.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
What the Miner in the Desert Said 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, What the Miner in the Desert Said, in The Congo and Other Poems (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1021, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lindsay-congo/what-the-miner-in-the-desert-said.html, id L00988.
Form and metre
What the Miner in the Desert Said is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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-B-B-C-C keg · feastA · drink · beastA · flies · soB · again · slowB · ore · fatherlandC · hawks · sandC
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The moon's a brass-hooped water-keg, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| A wondrous water-feast. | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| If I could climb the ridge and drink | 8 | ········ |
| And give drink to my beast; | 6 | ······ |
| If I could drain that keg, the flies | 8 | ········ |
| Would not be biting so, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| My burning feet be spry again, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| My mule no longer slow. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And I could rise and dig for ore, | 8 | ········ |
| And reach my fatherland, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And not be food for ants and hawks | 8 | ········ |
| And perish in the sand. | 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.