Debris
I love those spiritsThat men stand off and point at,Or shudder and hood up their souls--Those ruined ones,Where Liberty has lodged an hourAnd passed like flame,Bursting asunder the too small house.
About this text
Debris 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, Debris, in The Ghetto, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4332, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/ridge-ghetto/debris.html, id L20880.
Form and metre
Debris is 7 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I love those spirits | 5 | ···/˘ |
| That men stand off and point at, | 7 | ······· |
| Or shudder and hood up their souls-- | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Those ruined ones, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Where Liberty has lodged an hour | 9 | ·/˘˘···/˘ |
| And passed like flame, | 4 | ···· |
| Bursting asunder the too small house. | 9 | /˘˘/˘···· |
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.