Frank Drummer
Out of a cell into this darkened space—The end at twenty-five!My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,And the village thought me a fool.Yet at the start there was a clear vision,A high and urgent purpose in my soulWhich drove me on trying to memorizeThe Encyclopedia Britannica!
Words in this poem
- drove n.
- A collection of cattle driven, or cattle collected for driving; a number of animals, as oxen, sheep, or swine, driven in a body. [AS. draf, fr. drifan to drive. See Drive.]
- memorize v. t.
- To cause to be remembered ; hence, to record. [See Memory.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Frank Drummer 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, Frank Drummer, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/frank-drummer.html, id L07765.
Form and metre
Frank Drummer is 8 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.4 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter, other poems in blank verse.
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Out of a cell into this darkened space— | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| The end at twenty-five! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| My tongue could not speak what stirred within me, | 10 | ·········· |
| And the village thought me a fool. | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Yet at the start there was a clear vision, | 10 | ········/˘ |
| A high and urgent purpose in my soul | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Which drove me on trying to memorize | 10 | ····/˘·/˘· |
| The Encyclopedia Britannica! | 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.