Wallace Ferguson
There at Geneva where Mt. Blanc floated aboveThe wine-hued lake like a cloud, when a breeze was blownOut of an empty sky of blue, and the roaring RhoneHurried under the bridge through chasms of rock;And the music along the cafés was part of the splendorOf dancing water under a torrent of light;And the purer part of the genius of Jean RousseauWas the silent music of all we saw or heard—There at Geneva, I say, was the rapture lessBecause I could not link myself with the I of yore,When twenty years before I wandered about Spoon River?Nor remember what I was nor what I felt?We live in the hour all free of the hours gone by.Therefore, O soul, if you lose yourself in death,And wake in some Geneva by some Mt. Blanc,What do you care if you know not yourself as the youWho lived and loved in a little corner of earthKnown as Spoon River ages and ages vanished?
Words in this poem
- blanc n.
- A white cosmetic.
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Wallace Ferguson 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, Wallace Ferguson, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/wallace-ferguson.html, id L07935.
Form and metre
Wallace Ferguson is 18 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 72%). 82% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.3 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 44% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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--------------- above · blownA · rhoneA · rock · splendor · light · rousseau · heard · less · yore · river · felt · by · death · blanc · you · earth · vanished
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There at Geneva where Mt. Blanc floated above | 12 | ··˘/˘···/˘·· |
| The wine-hued lake like a cloud, when a breeze was blown | 12 | ············ |
| Out of an empty sky of blue, and the roaring Rhone | 13 | ···/˘·····/˘· |
| Hurried under the bridge through chasms of rock; | 11 | /˘·····/˘·· |
| And the music along the cafés was part of the splendor | 14 | ··/˘˘/······/˘ |
| Of dancing water under a torrent of light; | 12 | ·/˘/˘···/˘·· |
| And the purer part of the genius of Jean Rousseau | 13 | ··/˘···/˘··˘/ |
| Was the silent music of all we saw or heard— | 12 | ··/˘/˘······ |
| There at Geneva, I say, was the rapture less | 12 | ··˘/˘····/˘· |
| Because I could not link myself with the I of yore, | 13 | ·······/····· |
| When twenty years before I wandered about Spoon River? | 14 | ·/˘····/˘···/˘ |
| Nor remember what I was nor what I felt? | 11 | ·˘/˘······· |
| We live in the hour all free of the hours gone by. | 14 | ····/˘····/˘·· |
| Therefore, O soul, if you lose yourself in death, | 11 | ·······˘/·· |
| And wake in some Geneva by some Mt. Blanc, | 11 | ····˘/˘···· |
| What do you care if you know not yourself as the you | 13 | ········˘/··· |
| Who lived and loved in a little corner of earth | 12 | ······/˘/˘·· |
| Known as Spoon River ages and ages vanished? | 12 | ···/˘/˘·/˘/˘ |
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.