William Goode
To all in the village I seemed, no doubt,To go this way and that way, aimlessly.But here by the river you can see at twilightThe soft-winged bats fly zig-zag here and there—They must fly so to catch their food.And if you have ever lost your way at night,In the deep wood near Miller’s Ford,And dodged this way and now that,Wherever the light of the Milky Way shone through,Trying to find the path,You should understand I sought the wayWith earnest zeal, and all my wanderingsWere wanderings in the quest.
Words in this poem
- wherever adv.
- At or in whatever place; wheresoever.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
William Goode 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, William Goode, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/william-goode.html, id L07943.
Form and metre
William Goode 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. 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.2 syllables. 2 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 --A--A------- doubt · aimlessly · twilightA · there · food · nightA · ford · that · through · path · way · wanderings · quest
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 |
|---|---|---|
| To all in the village I seemed, no doubt, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| To go this way and that way, aimlessly. | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| But here by the river you can see at twilight | 12 | ····/˘····/· |
| The soft-winged bats fly zig-zag here and there— | 10 | ·········· |
| They must fly so to catch their food. | 8 | ········ |
| And if you have ever lost your way at night, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| In the deep wood near Miller’s Ford, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And dodged this way and now that, | 7 | ······· |
| Wherever the light of the Milky Way shone through, | 12 | ˘/˘····/˘··· |
| Trying to find the path, | 6 | /˘···· |
| You should understand I sought the way | 9 | ···˘/···· |
| With earnest zeal, and all my wanderings | 10 | ·/˘····/˘˘ |
| Were wanderings in the quest. | 7 | ·/˘˘··· |
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.