Doc Hill
I went up and down the streetsHere and there by day and night,Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick.Do you know why?My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs.And I turned to the people and poured out my love to them.Sweet it was to see the crowds about the lawns on the day of myfuneral,And hear them murmur their love and sorrow.But oh, dear God, my soul trembled, scarcely ableTo hold to the railing of the new lifeWhen I saw Em Stanton behind the oak treeAt the grave,Hiding herself, and her grief!
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Doc Hill 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, Doc Hill, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/doc-hill.html, id L07768.
Form and metre
Doc Hill is 14 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. 87% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.3 syllables. 3 lines end 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--A------- streets · night · sick · whyA · dogs · them · myA · funeral · sorrow · able · life · tree · grave · grief
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I went up and down the streets | 7 | ······· |
| Here and there by day and night, | 7 | ······· |
| Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick. | 15 | ··/˘···/˘······ |
| Do you know why? | 4 | ···· |
| My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs. | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| And I turned to the people and poured out my love to them. | 14 | ·····/˘······· |
| Sweet it was to see the crowds about the lawns on the day of my | 16 | ················ |
| funeral, | 3 | /˘˘ |
| And hear them murmur their love and sorrow. | 10 | ···/˘···/˘ |
| But oh, dear God, my soul trembled, scarcely able | 12 | ······/˘/˘/˘ |
| To hold to the railing of the new life | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| When I saw Em Stanton behind the oak tree | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| At the grave, | 3 | ··· |
| Hiding herself, and her grief! | 7 | /˘˘/··· |
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.