Calvin Campbell
Ye who are kicking against Fate,Tell me how it is that on this hill-sideRunning down to the river,Which fronts the sun and the south-wind,This plant draws from the air and soilPoison and becomes poison ivy?And this plant draws from the same air and soilSweet elixirs and colors and becomes arbutus?And both flourish?You may blame Spoon River for what it is,But whom do you blame for the will in youThat feeds itself and makes you dock-weed,Jimpson, dandelion or mullenAnd which can never use any soil or airSo as to make you jessamine or wistaria?
Words in this poem
- wistaria n.
- A genus of climbing leguminous plants bearing long, pendulous clusters of pale bluish flowers. [NL.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Calvin Campbell 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, Calvin Campbell, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/calvin-campbell.html, id L07912.
Form and metre
Calvin Campbell is 15 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 82% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.3 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 40% 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-------- fate · side · river · wind · soilA · ivy · soilA · arbutus · flourish · is · you · weed · mullen · air · wistaria
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ye who are kicking against Fate, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Tell me how it is that on this hill-side | 10 | ·········· |
| Running down to the river, | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| Which fronts the sun and the south-wind, | 8 | ········ |
| This plant draws from the air and soil | 8 | ········ |
| Poison and becomes poison ivy? | 9 | /˘·˘//˘/˘ |
| And this plant draws from the same air and soil | 10 | ·········· |
| Sweet elixirs and colors and becomes arbutus? | 13 | ·˘/˘·/˘·˘/··· |
| And both flourish? | 4 | ··/˘ |
| You may blame Spoon River for what it is, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| But whom do you blame for the will in you | 10 | ·········· |
| That feeds itself and makes you dock-weed, | 9 | ··˘/····· |
| Jimpson, dandelion or mullen | 9 | ··/˘·˘·/˘ |
| And which can never use any soil or air | 11 | ···/˘·/˘··· |
| So as to make you jessamine or wistaria? | 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.