Nancy Knapp
Well, don’t you see this was the way of it:We bought the farm with what he inherited,And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoningHis father’s mind against the rest of them.And we never had any peace with our treasure.The murrain took the cattle, and the crops failed.And lightning struck the granary.So we mortgaged the farm to keep going.And he grew silent and was worried all the time.Then some of the neighbors refused to speak to us,And took sides with his brothers and sisters.And I had no place to turn, as one may say to himself,At an earlier time in life;“No matter, So and so is my friend, or I can shake this offWith a little trip to Decatur.”Then the dreadfulest smells infested the rooms.So I set fire to the beds and the old witch-houseWent up in a roar of flame,As I danced in the yard with waving arms,While he wept like a freezing steer.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Nancy Knapp 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, Nancy Knapp, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/nancy-knapp.html, id L07809.
Form and metre
Nancy Knapp is 20 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.8 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 15% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Well, don’t you see this was the way of it: | 10 | ·········· |
| We bought the farm with what he inherited, | 11 | ·······˘/˘˘ |
| And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning | 14 | ··/˘·/˘˘/··/˘˘ |
| His father’s mind against the rest of them. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And we never had any peace with our treasure. | 13 | ··/˘·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| The murrain took the cattle, and the crops failed. | 11 | ·/˘··/˘···· |
| And lightning struck the granary. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| So we mortgaged the farm to keep going. | 10 | ··/˘····/˘ |
| And he grew silent and was worried all the time. | 12 | ···/˘··/˘··· |
| Then some of the neighbors refused to speak to us, | 12 | ····/˘˘/···· |
| And took sides with his brothers and sisters. | 10 | ·····/˘·/˘ |
| And I had no place to turn, as one may say to himself, | 14 | ············˘/ |
| At an earlier time in life; | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| “No matter, So and so is my friend, or I can shake this off | 15 | ·/˘············ |
| With a little trip to Decatur.” | 9 | ··/˘··˘/˘ |
| Then the dreadfulest smells infested the rooms. | 11 | ··/˘˘·˘/˘·· |
| So I set fire to the beds and the old witch-house | 13 | ···/˘········ |
| Went up in a roar of flame, | 7 | ······· |
| As I danced in the yard with waving arms, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| While he wept like a freezing steer. | 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.