Hare Drummer
Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’sFor cider, after school, in late September?Or gather hazel nuts among the thicketsOn Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin?For many times with the laughing girls and boysPlayed I along the road and over the hillsWhen the sun was low and the air was cool,Stopping to club the walnut treeStanding leafless against a flaming west.Now, the smell of the autumn smoke,And the dropping acorns,And the echoes about the valesBring dreams of life.They hover over me.They question me:Where are those laughing comrades?How many are with me, how manyIn the old orchards along the way to Siever’s,And in the woods that overlookThe quiet water?
Words in this poem
- hover n.
- A cover; a shelter; a protection. Carew. C. Kingsley. [Etymol. doubtful.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hare 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, Hare Drummer, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/hare-drummer.html, id L07766.
Form and metre
Hare Drummer is 20 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. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.5 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 40% 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--B-----BB--A-- siever'sA · september · thickets · begin · boysA · hills · cool · treeB · west · smoke · acorns · vales · life · meB · meB · comrades · many · siever'sA · overlook · water
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s | 10 | ········/˘ |
| For cider, after school, in late September? | 11 | ·/˘·····˘/˘ |
| Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets | 11 | ·/˘/˘····/˘ |
| On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin? | 11 | ·/˘/·····˘/ |
| For many times with the laughing girls and boys | 11 | ·/˘···/˘··· |
| Played I along the road and over the hills | 11 | ··˘/······· |
| When the sun was low and the air was cool, | 10 | ·········· |
| Stopping to club the walnut tree | 8 | /˘···/·· |
| Standing leafless against a flaming west. | 10 | /˘/˘···/˘· |
| Now, the smell of the autumn smoke, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And the dropping acorns, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| And the echoes about the vales | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Bring dreams of life. | 4 | ···· |
| They hover over me. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| They question me: | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Where are those laughing comrades? | 7 | ···/˘/· |
| How many are with me, how many | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| In the old orchards along the way to Siever’s, | 12 | ···/˘˘/···/˘ |
| And in the woods that overlook | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The quiet water? | 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.