Jonas Keene
Why did Albert Schirding kill himselfTrying to be County Superintendent of Schools,Blest as he was with the means of lifeAnd wonderful children, bringing him honorEre he was sixty?If even one of my boys could have run a news-stand,Or one of my girls could have married a decent man,I should not have walked in the rainAnd jumped into bed with clothes all wet,Refusing medical aid.
Words in this poem
- county n.
- An earldom; the domain of a count or earl. [F. comt, fr. LL. comitatus. See Count.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Jonas Keene 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, Jonas Keene, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/jonas-keene.html, id L07825.
Form and metre
Jonas Keene is 10 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.7 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 40% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Why did Albert Schirding kill himself | 9 | ··/˘···˘/ |
| Trying to be County Superintendent of Schools, | 13 | /˘··/˘·˘˘/˘·· |
| Blest as he was with the means of life | 9 | ········· |
| And wonderful children, bringing him honor | 11 | ·/˘˘/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Ere he was sixty? | 5 | ···/˘ |
| If even one of my boys could have run a news-stand, | 13 | ·/˘·········· |
| Or one of my girls could have married a decent man, | 13 | ·······/˘·/˘· |
| I should not have walked in the rain | 8 | ········ |
| And jumped into bed with clothes all wet, | 9 | ········· |
| Refusing medical aid. | 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.