Dow Kritt
Samuel is forever talking of his elm—But I did not need to die to learn about roots:I, who dug all the ditches about Spoon River.Look at my elm!Sprung from as good a seed as his,Sown at the same time,It is dying at the top:Not from lack of life, nor fungus,Nor destroying insect, as the sexton thinks.Look, Samuel, where the roots have struck rock,And can no further spread.And all the while the top of the treeIs tiring itself out, and dying,Trying to grow.
About this text
Dow Kritt 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, Dow Kritt, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/dow-kritt.html, id L07941.
Form and metre
Dow Kritt 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. 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 7% 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---------- elmA · roots · river · elmA · his · time · top · fungus · thinks · rock · spread · tree · dying · grow
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Samuel is forever talking of his elm— | 11 | /˘·˘/˘/˘··· |
| But I did not need to die to learn about roots: | 12 | ············ |
| I, who dug all the ditches about Spoon River. | 12 | ·····/˘···/˘ |
| Look at my elm! | 4 | ···· |
| Sprung from as good a seed as his, | 8 | ········ |
| Sown at the same time, | 5 | ····· |
| It is dying at the top: | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Not from lack of life, nor fungus, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Nor destroying insect, as the sexton thinks. | 11 | ·˘/˘/···/˘· |
| Look, Samuel, where the roots have struck rock, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| And can no further spread. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And all the while the top of the tree | 9 | ········· |
| Is tiring itself out, and dying, | 9 | ·/˘˘/··/˘ |
| Trying to grow. | 4 | /˘·· |
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.