Promenade
Undulant rustlings,Of oncoming silk,Rhythmic, incessant,Like the motion of leaves...Fragments of colorIn glowing surprises...Pink inuendoesHooded in grayLike buds in a cobwebPearled at dawn...Glimpses of greenAnd blurs of goldAnd delicate mauvesThat snatch at youth...And bodies all rosilyFleshed for the airing,In warm velvety surgesPassing imperious, slow...
Women drift into the limousinesThat shut like silken casketsOn gems half weary of their glittering...Lamps open like pale moon flowers...Arcs are radiant opalsStrewn along the dusk...No common lights invade.And spires rise like litanies--Magnificats of stoneOver the white silence of the arcs,Burning in perpetual adoration.
Words in this poem
- rhythmic a.
- Pertaining to, or of the nature of, rhythm DAy and night I worked my rhythmic thought. Mrs. Browning. [Gr. rhythmicus, F. rhythmique.]
- cobweb n.
- The network spread by a spider to catch its prey. [Cob a spider + web.]
- rosily adv.
- In a rosy manner. M. Arnold.
- fleshed a.
- Corpulent; fat; having flesh.
- airing n.
- A walk or a ride in the open air; a short excursion for health's sake.
- imperious a.
- Commanding; ascendant; imperial; lordly; majestic. [L. imperiosus: cf. F. impérieux. See Imperial.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Promenade 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, Promenade, in The Ghetto, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4332, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/ridge-ghetto/promenade.html, id L20877.
Form and metre
Promenade is 29 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 74%).
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.
- 2 --------A-A limousines · caskets · glittering · flowers · opals · dusk · invade · litanies · stoneA · arcs · adorationA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Undulant rustlings, | 5 | /˘˘/˘ |
| Of oncoming silk, | 5 | ·/·˘· |
| Rhythmic, incessant, | 5 | /˘˘/˘ |
| Like the motion of leaves... | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| Fragments of color | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| In glowing surprises... | 6 | ·/˘˘/˘ |
| Pink inuendoes | 3 | ··· |
| Hooded in gray | 4 | /˘·· |
| Like buds in a cobweb | 6 | ····/· |
| Pearled at dawn... | 3 | ··· |
| Glimpses of green | 4 | /˘·· |
| And blurs of gold | 4 | ···· |
| And delicate mauves | 5 | ·/˘˘· |
| That snatch at youth... | 4 | ···· |
| And bodies all rosily | 7 | ·/˘·/˘˘ |
| Fleshed for the airing, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| In warm velvety surges | 7 | ··/˘˘/˘ |
| Passing imperious, slow... | 7 | /˘˘/˘˘· |
| Women drift into the limousines | 9 | /˘····/˘· |
| That shut like silken caskets | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| On gems half weary of their glittering... | 10 | ···/˘··/˘˘ |
| Lamps open like pale moon flowers... | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| Arcs are radiant opals | 7 | ··/˘˘/˘ |
| Strewn along the dusk... | 5 | ·˘/·· |
| No common lights invade. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| And spires rise like litanies-- | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| Magnificats of stone | 6 | ······ |
| Over the white silence of the arcs, | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Burning in perpetual adoration. | 11 | /˘·˘/˘˘·˘/˘ |
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.