Lois Spears
Here lies the body of Lois Spears,Born Lois Fluke, daughter of Willard Fluke,Wife of Cyrus Spears,Mother of Myrtle and Virgil Spears,Children with clear eyes and sound limbs—(I was born blind)I was the happiest of womenAs wife, mother and housekeeper.Caring for my loved ones,And making my homeA place of order and bounteous hospitality:For I went about the rooms,And about the gardenWith an instinct as sure as sight,As though there were eyes in my finger tips—Glory to God in the highest.
Words in this poem
- housekeeper n.
- One who occupies a house with his family; a householder; the master or mistress of a family.
- bounteous a.
- Liberal in charity; disposed to give freely; generously liberal; munificent; beneficent; free in bestowing gifts; as, bounteous production. [OE. bountevous, fr. bounte bounty.]
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lois Spears 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, Lois Spears, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/lois-spears.html, id L07786.
Form and metre
Lois Spears is 16 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.9 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 19% 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-AA------------ spearsA · fluke · spearsA · spearsA · limbs · blind · women · housekeeper · ones · home · hospitality · rooms · garden · sight · tips · highest
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Here lies the body of Lois Spears, | 9 | ···/˘·/˘· |
| Born Lois Fluke, daughter of Willard Fluke, | 10 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘· |
| Wife of Cyrus Spears, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Mother of Myrtle and Virgil Spears, | 9 | /˘·/˘·/˘· |
| Children with clear eyes and sound limbs— | 8 | /˘······ |
| (I was born blind) | 4 | ···· |
| I was the happiest of women | 9 | ···/˘˘·/˘ |
| As wife, mother and housekeeper. | 8 | ··/˘·/·˘ |
| Caring for my loved ones, | 6 | /˘···· |
| And making my home | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| A place of order and bounteous hospitality: | 14 | ···/˘·/˘˘·˘/˘˘ |
| For I went about the rooms, | 7 | ······· |
| And about the garden | 6 | ····/˘ |
| With an instinct as sure as sight, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| As though there were eyes in my finger tips— | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Glory to God in the highest. | 8 | /˘····/˘ |
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.