The Rock-Breaker
Pausing he leans upon his sledge, and looks--A labor-blasted toiler;So have I seen, on Shasta’s top, a pineStand silent on a cliff,Stript of its glory of green leaves and boughs,Its great trunk split by fire,Its gray bark blackened by the thunder-smoke,Its life a sacrificeTo some blind purpose of the destinies.
Words in this poem
- toiler n.
- One who toils, or labors painfully.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Rock-Breaker 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, The Rock-Breaker, 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/the-rock-breaker.html, id L24805.
Form and metre
The Rock-Breaker is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 ----A---A looks · toiler · pine · cliff · boughsA · fire · smoke · sacrifice · destiniesA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Pausing he leans upon his sledge, and looks-- | 10 | /˘········ |
| A labor-blasted toiler; | 7 | ·/˘/˘/˘ |
| So have I seen, on Shasta’s top, a pine | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Stand silent on a cliff, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Stript of its glory of green leaves and boughs, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Its great trunk split by fire, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Its gray bark blackened by the thunder-smoke, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Its life a sacrifice | 6 | ···/˘· |
| To some blind purpose of the destinies. | 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.