Chase Henry
In life I was the town drunkard;When I died the priest denied me burialIn holy ground.The which redounded to my good fortune.For the Protestants bought this lot,And buried my body here,Close to the grave of the banker Nicholas,And of his wife Priscilla.Take note, ye prudent and pious souls,Of the cross—currents in lifeWhich bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame
Words in this poem
- burial n.
- A grave; a tomb; a place of sepulture. [OE. buriel, buriels, grave, tomb, AS. byrgels, fr. byrgan to bury, and akin to OS. burgisli sepulcher.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chase Henry 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, Chase Henry, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/chase-henry.html, id L07751.
Form and metre
Chase Henry is 11 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 81% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 27% 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In life I was the town drunkard; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| When I died the priest denied me burial | 11 | ·····˘/·/˘˘ |
| In holy ground. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| The which redounded to my good fortune. | 10 | ··˘/˘···/˘ |
| For the Protestants bought this lot, | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| And buried my body here, | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| Close to the grave of the banker Nicholas, | 11 | ······/˘/˘˘ |
| And of his wife Priscilla. | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| Take note, ye prudent and pious souls, | 9 | ···/˘·/˘· |
| Of the cross—currents in life | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Which bring honor to the dead, who lived in shame | 11 | ··/˘······· |
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.