Shack Dye
The white men played all sorts of jokes on me.They took big fish off my hookAnd put little ones on, while I was awayGetting a stringer, and made me believeI hadn’t seen aright the fish I had caught.When Burr Robbins circus came to townThey got the ring master to let a tame leopardInto the ring, and made me believeI was whipping a wild beast like SamsonWhen I, for an offer of fifty dollars,Dragged him out to his cage.One time I entered my blacksmith shopAnd shook as I saw some horse-shoes crawlingAcross the floor, as if alive—Walter Simmons had put a magnetUnder the barrel of water.Yet everyone of you, you white men,Was fooled about fish and about leopards too,And you didn’t know any more than the horse-shoes didWhat moved you about Spoon River.
Words in this poem
- stringer n.
- One who strings; one who makes or provides strings, especially for bows.
- aright adv.
- Rightly; correctly; in a right way or form; without mistake or crime; as, to worship God aright. [Pref. a- + right.]
- blacksmith n.
- A smith who works in iron with a forge, and makes iron utensils, horseshoes, etc. [Black (in allusion to the color of the metal) + smith. Cf. Whitesmith.]
- shook v. t.
- To pack, as staves, in a shook.
- walter v. i.
- To roll or wallow; to welter. [Obs. or Prov. Eng. & Scot.] [See Welter.]
- everyone n.
- Everybody; -- commonly separated, every one. [OE. everychon.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Shack Dye 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, Shack Dye, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/shack-dye.html, id L07895.
Form and metre
Shack Dye is 20 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, 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 9.6 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 55% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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-B-AB----------- me · hook · away · believeA · caught · townB · leopard · believeA · samsonB · dollars · cage · shop · crawling · alive · magnet · water · men · too · did · river
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The white men played all sorts of jokes on me. | 10 | ·········· |
| They took big fish off my hook | 7 | ······· |
| And put little ones on, while I was away | 11 | ··/˘·····˘/ |
| Getting a stringer, and made me believe | 10 | /˘·/˘···˘/ |
| I hadn’t seen aright the fish I had caught. | 11 | ·/˘·˘/····· |
| When Burr Robbins circus came to town | 9 | ··/˘/˘··· |
| They got the ring master to let a tame leopard | 12 | ····/˘····/˘ |
| Into the ring, and made me believe | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| I was whipping a wild beast like Samson | 10 | ··/˘····/˘ |
| When I, for an offer of fifty dollars, | 11 | ····/˘·/˘/˘ |
| Dragged him out to his cage. | 6 | ······ |
| One time I entered my blacksmith shop | 9 | ···/˘·/·· |
| And shook as I saw some horse-shoes crawling | 10 | ········/˘ |
| Across the floor, as if alive— | 8 | ˘/····˘/ |
| Walter Simmons had put a magnet | 9 | /˘/˘···/˘ |
| Under the barrel of water. | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| Yet everyone of you, you white men, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Was fooled about fish and about leopards too, | 11 | ········/˘· |
| And you didn’t know any more than the horse-shoes did | 13 | ··/˘·/˘······ |
| What moved you about Spoon River. | 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.