A Leaf from the Devil’s Jest-Book
Beside the sewing-table chained and bent,They stitch for the lady, tyrannous and proud--For her a wedding-gown, for them a shroud;They stitch and stitch, but never mend the rentTorn in life’s golden curtains. Glad Youth went,And left them alone with Time; and now if bowedWith burdens they should sob and cry aloud,--Wondering, the rich would look from their content.
And so this glimmering life at last recedesIn unknown, endless depths beyond recall;And what’s the worth of all our ancient creeds,If here at the end of ages this is all--A white face floating in the whirling ball,A dead face plashing in the river reeds?
Words in this poem
- tyrannous a.
- Tyrannical; arbitrary; unjustly severe; despotic. Sir P.
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- aloud adv.
- With a loud voice, or great noise; loudly; audibly. [Pref. a- + loud.]
- plashing n.
- The cutting or bending and intertwining the branches of small trees, as in hedges.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Leaf from the Devil’s Jest-Book is in the public domain. This text is taken from The man with the hoe, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #67012; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Markham, A Leaf from the Devil’s Jest-Book, in The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #67012, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-man-with-hoe/a-leaf-from-the-devil-s-jest-book.html, id L24751.
Form and metre
A Leaf from the Devil’s Jest-Book is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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 ABBAABBA bentA · proudB · shroudB · rentA · wentA · bowedB · aloudB · contentA
- 2 ABABBA recedesA · recallB · creedsA · allB · ballB · reedsA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Beside the sewing-table chained and bent, | 10 | ˘/·/˘/˘··· |
| They stitch for the lady, tyrannous and proud-- | 11 | ····/˘/˘˘·· |
| For her a wedding-gown, for them a shroud; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| They stitch and stitch, but never mend the rent | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Torn in life’s golden curtains. Glad Youth went, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And left them alone with Time; and now if bowed | 11 | ···˘/······ |
| With burdens they should sob and cry aloud,-- | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Wondering, the rich would look from their content. | 11 | /˘˘······˘/ |
| And so this glimmering life at last recedes | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| In unknown, endless depths beyond recall; | 10 | ·˘//˘···˘/ |
| And what’s the worth of all our ancient creeds, | 10 | ······//˘· |
| If here at the end of ages this is all-- | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| A white face floating in the whirling ball, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| A dead face plashing in the river reeds? | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
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.