Yee Bow
They got me into the Sunday-schoolIn Spoon RiverAnd tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus.I could have been no worse offIf I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius.For, without any warning, as if it were a prank,And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley,The minister’s son, caved my ribs into my lungs,With a blow of his fist.Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin,And no children shall worship at my grave.
Words in this poem
- harry v. i.
- To make a predatory incursion; to plunder or lay waste.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Yee Bow 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, Yee Bow, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/yee-bow.html, id L07827.
Form and metre
Yee Bow is 11 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 10.4 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 27% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| They got me into the Sunday-school | 9 | ······/·· |
| In Spoon River | 4 | ··/˘ |
| And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. | 13 | ·······˘/˘·/˘ |
| I could have been no worse off | 7 | ······· |
| If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. | 15 | ·········/˘·˘/˘ |
| For, without any warning, as if it were a prank, | 13 | ···/˘/˘······ |
| And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley, | 11 | ·/˘····/˘/˘ |
| The minister’s son, caved my ribs into my lungs, | 12 | ·/˘˘········ |
| With a blow of his fist. | 6 | ······ |
| Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin, | 14 | ···/˘···/·˘·/˘ |
| And no children shall worship at my grave. | 10 | ··/˘·/˘··· |
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.