Henry Layton
Whoever thou art who passest byKnow that my father was gentle,And my mother was violent,While I was born the whole of such hostile halves,Not intermixed and fused,But each distinct, feebly soldered together.Some of you saw me as gentle,Some as violent,Some as both.But neither half of me wrought my ruin.It was the falling asunder of halves,Never a part of each other,That left me a lifeless soul.
Words in this poem
- whoever pron.
- Whatever person; any person who; be or she who; any one who; as, he shall be punished, whoever he may be.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Henry Layton 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, Henry Layton, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/henry-layton.html, id L07913.
Form and metre
Henry Layton is 13 lines in a single stanza. The metre is dactylic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 77% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 8% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in dactylic trimeter.
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 -ABC--AB--C-- by · gentleA · violentB · halvesC · fused · together · gentleA · violentB · both · ruin · halvesC · other · soul
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 dactylic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Whoever thou art who passest by | 9 | ˘/˘···/˘· |
| Know that my father was gentle, | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| And my mother was violent, | 8 | ··/˘·/˘˘ |
| While I was born the whole of such hostile halves, | 11 | ········/˘· |
| Not intermixed and fused, | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| But each distinct, feebly soldered together. | 11 | ··˘//˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Some of you saw me as gentle, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Some as violent, | 5 | ··/˘˘ |
| Some as both. | 3 | ··· |
| But neither half of me wrought my ruin. | 10 | ·/˘·····/˘ |
| It was the falling asunder of halves, | 10 | ···/˘˘/˘·· |
| Never a part of each other, | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
| That left me a lifeless soul. | 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.