Judson Stoddard
On a mountain top above the cloudsThat streamed like a sea below meI said that peak is the thought of Budda,And that one is the prayer of Jesus,And this one is the dream of Plato,And that one there the song of Dante,And this is Kant and this is Newton,And this is Milton and this is Shakespeare,And this the hope of the Mother Church,And this—why all these peaks are poems,Poems and prayers that pierce the clouds.And I said “What does God do with mountainsThat rise almost to heaven?”
About this text
Judson Stoddard 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, Judson Stoddard, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/judson-stoddard.html, id L07962.
Form and metre
Judson Stoddard is 13 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.0 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 23% 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-- cloudsA · me · budda · jesus · plato · dante · newton · shakespeare · church · poems · cloudsA · mountains · heaven
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 |
|---|---|---|
| On a mountain top above the clouds | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| That streamed like a sea below me | 9 | ··˘······ |
| I said that peak is the thought of Budda, | 10 | ·········· |
| And that one is the prayer of Jesus, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And this one is the dream of Plato, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And that one there the song of Dante, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And this is Kant and this is Newton, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And this is Milton and this is Shakespeare, | 10 | ···/˘···/· |
| And this the hope of the Mother Church, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| And this—why all these peaks are poems, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Poems and prayers that pierce the clouds. | 8 | /˘······ |
| And I said “What does God do with mountains | 10 | ········/˘ |
| That rise almost to heaven?” | 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.