Abel Melveny
I bought every kind of machine that’s known—Grinders, shellers, planters, mowers,Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers—And all of them stood in the rain and sun,Getting rusted, warped and battered,For I had no sheds to store them in,And no use for most of them.And toward the last, when I thought it over,There by my window, growing clearerAbout myself, as my pulse slowed down,And looked at one of the mills I bought—Which I didn’t have the slightest need of,As things turned out, and I never ran—A fine machine, once brightly varnished,And eager to do its work,Now with its paint washed off—I saw myself as a good machineThat Life had never used.
Words in this poem
- clearer n.
- One who, or that which, clears.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Abel Melveny is in the public domain. This text is taken from Spoon River Anthology, Project Gutenberg ebook #1280; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edgar Lee Masters, Abel Melveny, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/abel-melveny.html, id L07880.
Form and metre
Abel Melveny is 18 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.6 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 11% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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---A-------- known · mowers · threshers · sunA · battered · inA · them · over · clearer · downA · bought · of · ran · varnished · work · off · machine · used
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I bought every kind of machine that’s known— | 11 | ··/˘˘··˘/·· |
| Grinders, shellers, planters, mowers, | 8 | /˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| Mills and rakes and ploughs and threshers— | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And all of them stood in the rain and sun, | 10 | ·········· |
| Getting rusted, warped and battered, | 8 | /˘/˘··/˘ |
| For I had no sheds to store them in, | 9 | ········· |
| And no use for most of them. | 7 | ······· |
| And toward the last, when I thought it over, | 11 | ··········· |
| There by my window, growing clearer | 9 | ···/˘/˘/˘ |
| About myself, as my pulse slowed down, | 9 | ···/····· |
| And looked at one of the mills I bought— | 9 | ········· |
| Which I didn’t have the slightest need of, | 10 | ··/˘··/˘·· |
| As things turned out, and I never ran— | 9 | ······/˘· |
| A fine machine, once brightly varnished, | 9 | ··˘/·/˘/˘ |
| And eager to do its work, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Now with its paint washed off— | 6 | ······ |
| I saw myself as a good machine | 9 | ···/···˘/ |
| That Life had never used. | 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.