Hortense Robbins
My name used to be in the papers dailyAs having dined somewhere,Or traveled somewhere,Or rented a house in Paris,Where I entertained the nobility.I was forever eating or traveling,Or taking the cure at Baden-Baden.Now I am here to do honorTo Spoon River, here beside the family whence I sprang.No one cares now where I dined,Or lived, or whom I entertained,Or how often I took the cure at Baden-Baden.
Words in this poem
- somewhere adv.
- In some place unknown or not specified; in one place or another.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Hortense Robbins 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, Hortense Robbins, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/hortense-robbins.html, id L07867.
Form and metre
Hortense Robbins is 12 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. 80% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.2 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% 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 -AA--BC-B--C daily · somewhereA · somewhereA · paris · nobility · travelingB · badenC · honor · sprangB · dined · entertained · badenC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My name used to be in the papers daily | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| As having dined somewhere, | 6 | ·/˘·/· |
| Or traveled somewhere, | 5 | ·/˘/· |
| Or rented a house in Paris, | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| Where I entertained the nobility. | 10 | ···˘/·˘/˘˘ |
| I was forever eating or traveling, | 11 | ··˘/˘/˘·/˘˘ |
| Or taking the cure at Baden-Baden. | 10 | ·/˘···/˘/˘ |
| Now I am here to do honor | 8 | ······/˘ |
| To Spoon River, here beside the family whence I sprang. | 14 | ··/˘·˘/·/˘˘··· |
| No one cares now where I dined, | 7 | ······· |
| Or lived, or whom I entertained, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Or how often I took the cure at Baden-Baden. | 13 | ··/˘·····/˘/˘ |
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.