Brooklyn Bridge
Pythoness body--archingOver the night like an ecstasy--I feel your coils tightening...And the world's lessening breath.
Words in this poem
- pythoness n.
- The priestess who gave oracular answers at Delphi in Greece. [L. pythonissa: cf. F. pythonisse. See Pythian.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Brooklyn Bridge is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Ghetto, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #4332; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lola Ridge, Brooklyn Bridge, in The Ghetto, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4332, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/ridge-ghetto/brooklyn-bridge.html, id L20907.
Form and metre
Brooklyn Bridge is 4 lines in a single stanza.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Pythoness body--arching | 7 | /˘˘/˘/˘ |
| Over the night like an ecstasy-- | 9 | ······/˘˘ |
| I feel your coils tightening... | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| And the world's lessening breath. | 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.