Poem II
A uniformed front,Paunched;A glance like a blow,The swing of an arm,Verved, vigorous;Boot-heels clankingIn metallic rhythm;The blows of a baton,Quick, staccato...
--There is a rustling along the benchesAs of dried leaves raked over...And the old man lifts a shaking palsied hand,Tucking the displaced paper about his knees.
Colder...And a frost under foot,Acid, corroding,Eating through worn bootsoles.
Drab forms blur into greenish vapor.Through boughs like cross-bones,Pale arcs flare and shiverLike lilies in a wind.
High over BroadwayA far-flung signGlitters in indigo darknessAnd spurts again rhythmically,Spraying great dropsRed as a hemorrhage.
Words in this poem
- palsied a.
- Affected with palsy; paralyzed.
- flare v. i.
- To burn with an unsteady or waving flame; as, the candle flares. [Cf. Norw. flara to blaze, flame, adorn with tinsel, dial. Sw. flasa upp, and E. flash, or flacker.]
- rhythmically adv.
- In a rhythmical manner.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poem II 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, Poem II, in The Ghetto, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4332, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/ridge-ghetto/poem-ii.html, id L20874.
Form and metre
Poem II is 27 lines in 5 stanzas. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 72%).
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 front · paunched · blowA · arm · vigorous · clanking · rhythm · baton · staccatoA
- 2 A--A benchesA · over · hand · kneesA
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 trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A uniformed front, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Paunched; | 1 | · |
| A glance like a blow, | 5 | ····· |
| The swing of an arm, | 5 | ····· |
| Verved, vigorous; | 4 | ·/˘˘ |
| Boot-heels clanking | 4 | ··/˘ |
| In metallic rhythm; | 6 | ·˘/˘/˘ |
| The blows of a baton, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Quick, staccato... | 4 | ·˘/· |
| --There is a rustling along the benches | 10 | ···/˘˘/·/˘ |
| As of dried leaves raked over... | 7 | ······· |
| And the old man lifts a shaking palsied hand, | 11 | ······/˘/˘· |
| Tucking the displaced paper about his knees. | 11 | /˘·˘//˘···· |
| Colder... | 2 | /˘ |
| And a frost under foot, | 6 | ······ |
| Acid, corroding, | 5 | /˘˘/˘ |
| Eating through worn bootsoles. | 6 | /˘···· |
| Drab forms blur into greenish vapor. | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Through boughs like cross-bones, | 5 | ····· |
| Pale arcs flare and shiver | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Like lilies in a wind. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| High over Broadway | 5 | ···/· |
| A far-flung sign | 4 | ···· |
| Glitters in indigo darkness | 8 | /˘·/˘·/˘ |
| And spurts again rhythmically, | 7 | ··˘//˘˘ |
| Spraying great drops | 4 | /˘·· |
| Red as a hemorrhage. | 6 | ···/˘˘ |
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.