The Destroyer
I am of the wind...A wisp of the battering wind...
I trail my fingers along the AlpsAnd an avalanche falls in my wake...I feel in my quivering lengthWhen it buries the hamlet beneath...
I hurriedly sweep asideThe cities that clutter our path...As we whirl about the circle of the globe...As we tear at the pillars of the world...Open to the wind,The Destroyer!The wind that is battering at your gates.
Words in this poem
- wisp n.
- A small bundle, as of straw or other like substance. [OE. wisp, wips; probably akin to D. & G. wisch, Icel. visk, and perhaps to L. virga a twig, rod. Cf. Verge a rod, Whisk, n.]
- avalanche n.
- A large mass or body of snow and ice sliding swiftly down a mountain side, or falling down a precipice. [F. avalanche, fr. avaler to descend, to let down, from aval down, downward; ad) + val, L. vallis, valley. See Valley.]
- clutter v. t.
- To clot or coagulate, as blood. Holland. [From Clod, n.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Destroyer 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, The Destroyer, in The Ghetto, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4332, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/ridge-ghetto/the-destroyer.html, id L20901.
Form and metre
The Destroyer is 13 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%).
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.
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 AA windA · windA
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 am of the wind... | 5 | ····· |
| A wisp of the battering wind... | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| I trail my fingers along the Alps | 9 | ···/˘˘/·· |
| And an avalanche falls in my wake... | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| I feel in my quivering length | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| When it buries the hamlet beneath... | 9 | ··/˘·/˘·· |
| I hurriedly sweep aside | 7 | ·/˘˘·˘/ |
| The cities that clutter our path... | 9 | ·/˘·/˘/˘· |
| As we whirl about the circle of the globe... | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| As we tear at the pillars of the world... | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Open to the wind, | 5 | /˘··· |
| The Destroyer! | 4 | ·˘/˘ |
| The wind that is battering at your gates. | 10 | ····/˘˘··· |
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.