Knowlt Hoheimer
I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.When I felt the bullet enter my heartI wished I had staid at home and gone to jailFor stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,Instead of running away and joining the army.Rather a thousand times the county jailThan to lie under this marble figure with wings,And this granite pedestal Bearing the words, “Pro Patria.”What do they mean, anyway?
Words in this poem
- county n.
- An earldom; the domain of a count or earl. [F. comt, fr. LL. comitatus. See Count.]
- anyway adv.
- Anywise; at all. Tennyson. Southey.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Knowlt Hoheimer 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, Knowlt Hoheimer, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/knowlt-hoheimer.html, id L07763.
Form and metre
Knowlt Hoheimer is 9 lines in a single stanza. 80% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.3 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% 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.
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--- ridge · heart · jailA · trenary · army · jailA · wings · patria · anyway
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge. | 15 | ·······/˘·/˘·˘· |
| When I felt the bullet enter my heart | 10 | ····/˘/˘·· |
| I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail | 11 | ··········· |
| For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘˘ |
| Instead of running away and joining the army. | 13 | ˘/·/˘˘/·/˘·/˘ |
| Rather a thousand times the county jail | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| Than to lie under this marble figure with wings, | 12 | ······/˘/˘·· |
| And this granite pedestal Bearing the words, “Pro Patria.” | 14 | ··/˘/˘˘/˘····· |
| What do they mean, anyway? | 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.