The Song of Iron I
Not yet hast Thou soundedThy clangorous music,Whose strings are under the mountains...Not yet hast Thou spokenThe blooded, implacable Word...
But I hear in the Iron singing--In the triumphant roaring of the steam and pistons pounding--Thy barbaric exhortation...And the blood leaps in my arteries, unreproved,Answering Thy call...All my spirit is inundated with the tumultuous passion of Thy Voice,And sings exultant with the Iron,For now I know I too am of Thy Chosen...
Oh fashioned in fire--Needing flame for Thy ultimate word--Behold me, a cupolaPoured to Thy use!
Heed not my tremulous bodyThat faints in the grip of Thy gauntlet.Break it... and cast it aside...But make of my spiritThat dares and enduresThy crucible...Pour through my soulThy molten, world-whelming song.
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- clangorous a.
- Making a clangor; having a ringing, metallic sound. [LL. clangorosus.]
- barbaric a.
- Of, or from, barbarian nations; foreign; -- often with reference to barbarous nations of east. [L. barbaricus foreign, barbaric, Gr. .]
- unreproved a.
- Not reproved. Sandys.
- exultant a.
- Inclined to exult; characterized by, or expressing, exultation; rejoicing triumphantly. [L. exsultans, exsultantis, p. pr. of exsultare. See Exult.]
- cupola n.
- A roof having a rounded form, hemispherical or nearly so; also, a celing having the same form. When on a large scale it is usually called dome. [It. cupola, LL. cupula, cuppula (cf. L. cupula little tub). fr. cupa, cuppa, cup; cf. L. cupa tub. So called on account of its resemblance to a cup turned over.]
- gauntlet n.
- A glove of such material that it defends the hand from wounds. [F. gantelet, dim. of gant glove, LL. wantus, of Teutonic origin; cf. D. want, Sw. & Dan. vante, Icel. vöttr, for vantr.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Song of Iron I 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 Song of Iron I, in The Ghetto, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4332, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/ridge-ghetto/the-song-of-iron-i.html, id L20881.
Form and metre
The Song of Iron I is 25 lines in 4 stanzas.
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 soundedA · music · mountains · spoken · wordA
- 4 -----AA- body · gauntlet · aside · spirit · endures · crucibleA · soulA · song
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Not yet hast Thou sounded | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Thy clangorous music, | 6 | ·/˘˘/˘ |
| Whose strings are under the mountains... | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Not yet hast Thou spoken | 6 | ····/˘ |
| The blooded, implacable Word... | 8 | ·/˘˘/˘˘· |
| But I hear in the Iron singing-- | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| In the triumphant roaring of the steam and pistons pounding-- | 15 | ··˘/˘/˘····/˘/˘ |
| Thy barbaric exhortation... | 8 | ·˘/˘··/˘ |
| And the blood leaps in my arteries, unreproved, | 12 | ······/˘˘··· |
| Answering Thy call... | 5 | /˘˘·· |
| All my spirit is inundated with the tumultuous passion of Thy Voice, | 20 | ··/˘·/˘·˘···/˘˘/˘··· |
| And sings exultant with the Iron, | 9 | ··˘/˘··/˘ |
| For now I know I too am of Thy Chosen... | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Oh fashioned in fire-- | 6 | ·/˘·/˘ |
| Needing flame for Thy ultimate word-- | 9 | /˘···/˘˘· |
| Behold me, a cupola | 7 | ˘/··˘/˘ |
| Poured to Thy use! | 4 | ···· |
| Heed not my tremulous body | 8 | ···/˘˘/˘ |
| That faints in the grip of Thy gauntlet. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Break it... and cast it aside... | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| But make of my spirit | 6 | ····/˘ |
| That dares and endures | 5 | ···˘/ |
| Thy crucible... | 4 | ·/˘˘ |
| Pour through my soul | 4 | ···· |
| Thy molten, world-whelming song. | 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.