The Song of Iron III
The ore leaping in the crucibles,The ore communicant,Sending faint thrills along the leads...Fire is running along the roots of the mountains...I feel the long recoil of earthAs under a mighty quickening...(Dawn is aglow in the light of the Iron...)All palpitant, I wait...
Words in this poem
- communicant n.
- One who partakes of, or is entitled to partake of, the sacrament of the Lord's supper; a church member. [L. communicans, p. pr.]
- quickening n.
- The act or process of making or of becoming quick.
- aglow adv.
- In a glow; glowing; as, cheeks aglow; the landscape all aglow. [Pref. a- + glow.]
- palpitant a.
- Palpitating; throbbing; trembling. Carlyle. [L. palpitans, p. pr.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Song of Iron III 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 III, in The Ghetto, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4332, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/ridge-ghetto/the-song-of-iron-iii.html, id L20883.
Form and metre
The Song of Iron III is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 70%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The ore leaping in the crucibles, | 9 | ··/˘··/˘˘ |
| The ore communicant, | 6 | ··˘/˘˘ |
| Sending faint thrills along the leads... | 8 | /˘··˘/·· |
| Fire is running along the roots of the mountains... | 13 | /˘·/˘˘/····/˘ |
| I feel the long recoil of earth | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| As under a mighty quickening... | 9 | ····/˘/˘˘ |
| (Dawn is aglow in the light of the Iron...) | 11 | ··˘/·····/˘ |
| All palpitant, I wait... | 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.