Cassius Hueffer
They have chiseled on my stone the words:“His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in himThat nature might stand up and say to all the world,This was a man.”Those who knew me smileAs they read this empty rhetoric.My epitaph should have been:“Life was not gentle to him,And the elements so mixed in himThat he made warfare on lifeIn the which he was slain.”While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues,Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaphGraven by a fool!
Words in this poem
- graven p. p.
- Carved. Graven image, an idol; an object of worship carved from wood, stone, etc.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cassius Hueffer 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, Cassius Hueffer, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/cassius-hueffer.html, id L07747.
Form and metre
Cassius Hueffer is 14 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. 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.6 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 36% 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-----AA----- words · himA · world · man · smile · rhetoric · been · himA · himA · life · slain · tongues · epitaph · fool
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 |
|---|---|---|
| They have chiseled on my stone the words: | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| “His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him | 14 | ···/˘··/˘˘···· |
| That nature might stand up and say to all the world, | 12 | ·/˘········· |
| This was a man.” | 4 | ···· |
| Those who knew me smile | 5 | ····· |
| As they read this empty rhetoric. | 9 | ····/˘/˘˘ |
| My epitaph should have been: | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| “Life was not gentle to him, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| And the elements so mixed in him | 9 | ··/˘˘···· |
| That he made warfare on life | 7 | ···/··· |
| In the which he was slain.” | 6 | ······ |
| While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues, | 12 | ········/˘˘· |
| Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph | 14 | ·······˘/··/˘· |
| Graven by a fool! | 5 | /˘··· |
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.