Sam Hookey
I ran away from home with the circus,Having fallen in love with Mademoiselle Estralada,The lion tamer.One time, having starved the lionsFor more than a day,I entered the cage and began to beat BrutusAnd Leo and Gypsy.Whereupon Brutus sprang upon me,And killed me.On entering these regionsI met a shadow who cursed me,And said it served me right. . . .It was Robespierre!
Words in this poem
- mademoiselle n.
- A French title of courtesy given to a girl or an unmarried lady, equivalent to the English Miss. Goldsmith. [F., fr. ma my, f. of mon + demoiselle young lady. See Damsel.]
- tamer n.
- One who tames or subdues.
- whereupon adv.
- Upon which; in consequence of which; after which.
- cursed a.
- Deserving a curse; execrable; hateful; detestable; abominable.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sam Hookey 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, Sam Hookey, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/sam-hookey.html, id L07793.
Form and metre
Sam Hookey is 13 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 6 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 -------AA-A-- circus · estralada · tamer · lions · day · brutus · gypsy · meA · meA · regions · meA · right · robespierre
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I ran away from home with the circus, | 10 | ··˘/····/˘ |
| Having fallen in love with Mademoiselle Estralada, | 15 | /˘/˘····˘˘/···· |
| The lion tamer. | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| One time, having starved the lions | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| For more than a day, | 5 | ····· |
| I entered the cage and began to beat Brutus | 12 | ·/˘···˘/··/˘ |
| And Leo and Gypsy. | 6 | ·/˘·/˘ |
| Whereupon Brutus sprang upon me, | 9 | /˘//˘···· |
| And killed me. | 3 | ··· |
| On entering these regions | 7 | ·/˘˘·/˘ |
| I met a shadow who cursed me, | 8 | ···/···· |
| And said it served me right. . . . | 6 | ······ |
| It was Robespierre! | 5 | ····· |
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.