The Taxi
When I go away from youThe world beats deadLike a slackened drum.I call out for you against the jutted starsAnd shout into the ridges of the wind.Streets coming fast,One after the other,Wedge you away from me,And the lamps of the city prick my eyesSo that I can no longer see your face.Why should I leave you,To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?
About this text
The Taxi is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, Project Gutenberg ebook #1020; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Amy Lowell, The Taxi, in Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1020, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lowell-amy-sword-blades/the-taxi.html, id L08227.
Form and metre
The Taxi is 12 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% 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- youA · dead · drum · stars · wind · fast · other · me · eyes · face · youA · night
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When I go away from you | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| The world beats dead | 4 | ···· |
| Like a slackened drum. | 5 | ··/˘· |
| I call out for you against the jutted stars | 11 | ········/˘· |
| And shout into the ridges of the wind. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Streets coming fast, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| One after the other, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Wedge you away from me, | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| And the lamps of the city prick my eyes | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| So that I can no longer see your face. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Why should I leave you, | 5 | ····· |
| To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night? | 13 | ···/····/˘··· |
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.