Simulacra
Why does the horse-faced lady of just the unmentionable ageWalk down Longacre reciting Swinburne to herself, inaudibly?Why does the small child in the soiled-white imitation fur coatCrawl in the very black gutter beneath the grape stand?Why does the really handsome young woman approach me in Sackville StreetUndeterred by the manifest age of my trappings?
Words in this poem
- crawl v. i.
- To move slowly by drawing the body along the ground, as a worm; to move slowly on hands and kness; to creep. [Dan. kravle, or Icel. krafla, to paw, scrabble with the hands; akin to Sw. kr to crawl; cf. LG. krabbeln, D. krabbelen to scratch.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Simulacra is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lustra of Ezra Pound, Project Gutenberg ebook #55564; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ezra Pound, Simulacra, in Lustra (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #55564, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pound-lustra/simulacra.html, id L01297.
Form and metre
Simulacra is 6 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The lines average 15.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Why does the horse-faced lady of just the unmentionable age | 16 | ·····/˘···˘/˘˘˘· |
| Walk down Longacre reciting Swinburne to herself, inaudibly? | 17 | ··/·˘˘/˘···˘/˘/˘˘ |
| Why does the small child in the soiled-white imitation fur coat | 15 | ··········˘/˘·· |
| Crawl in the very black gutter beneath the grape stand? | 13 | ···/˘·/˘····· |
| Why does the really handsome young woman approach me in Sackville Street | 17 | ···/˘/˘·/˘˘/··/·· |
| Undeterred by the manifest age of my trappings? | 13 | ·˘/··/˘····/˘ |
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.