The Woman with Jewels
The woman with jewels sits in the cafe,Spraying light like a fountain.Diamonds glitter on her bulbous fingersAnd on her arms, great as thighs,Diamonds gush from her ear-lobes over the goitrous throat.She is obesely beautiful.Her eyes are full of bleared lights,Like little pools of tar, spilled by a sailor in mad haste for shore...And her mouth is scarlet and full--only a little crumpled--like a flower that has been pressed apart...
Why does she come alone to this obscure basement--She who should have a litter and hand-maidens to support heron either side?
She ascends the stairway, and the waiters turn to look at her,spilling the soup.The black satin dress is a little lifted, showing the dropsical legsin their silken fleshings...The mountainous breasts tremble...There is an agitation in her gems,That quiver incessantly, emitting trillions of fiery rays...She erupts explosive breaths...Every step is an adventureFrom this...The serpent's toothSaved Cleopatra.
Words in this poem
- cafe n.
- A coffeehouse; a restaurant; also, a room in a hotel or restaurant where coffee and liquors are served. [F. See Coffee.]
- goitrous a.
- Pertaining to the goiter; affected with the goiter; of the nature of goiter or bronchocele. [F. goîtreux, L. gutturosus. See Goiter.]
- bleared a.
- Dimmed, as by a watery humor; affected with rheum.
- stairway n.
- A flight of stairs or steps; a staircase.
- fleshings n.
- Flesh-colored tights, worn by actors dancers. D. Jerrold.
- incessantly adv.
- Unceasingly; continually.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Woman with Jewels 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 Woman with Jewels, in The Ghetto, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4332, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/ridge-ghetto/the-woman-with-jewels.html, id L20904.
Form and metre
The Woman with Jewels is 25 lines in 3 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 --AA------ cafe · fountain · fingersA · thighsA · throat · beautiful · lights · shore · crumpled · apart
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The woman with jewels sits in the cafe, | 11 | ·/˘·/˘···˘/ |
| Spraying light like a fountain. | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| Diamonds glitter on her bulbous fingers | 10 | /˘/˘··/˘/˘ |
| And on her arms, great as thighs, | 7 | ······· |
| Diamonds gush from her ear-lobes over the goitrous throat. | 13 | /˘········/˘· |
| She is obesely beautiful. | 9 | ······/˘˘ |
| Her eyes are full of bleared lights, | 7 | ······· |
| Like little pools of tar, spilled by a sailor in mad haste for shore... | 16 | ·/˘······/˘····· |
| And her mouth is scarlet and full--only a little crumpled-- | 15 | ····/˘··/˘·/˘/˘ |
| like a flower that has been pressed apart... | 10 | ··/˘····˘/ |
| Why does she come alone to this obscure basement-- | 12 | ····˘/··˘//˘ |
| She who should have a litter and hand-maidens to support her | 15 | ·····/˘··/˘·˘/· |
| on either side? | 4 | ·/˘· |
| She ascends the stairway, and the waiters turn to look at her, | 15 | ·˘/·/···/˘····· |
| spilling the soup. | 4 | /˘·· |
| The black satin dress is a little lifted, showing the dropsical legs | 18 | ··/˘···/˘/˘/˘·/˘˘· |
| in their silken fleshings... | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| The mountainous breasts tremble... | 7 | ·/˘˘·/˘ |
| There is an agitation in her gems, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| That quiver incessantly, emitting trillions of fiery rays... | 17 | ·/˘˘/˘˘˘/˘/˘·/˘˘· |
| She erupts explosive breaths... | 7 | ·˘/˘/˘· |
| Every step is an adventure | 9 | /˘˘···˘/˘ |
| From this... | 2 | ·· |
| The serpent's tooth | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Saved Cleopatra. | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
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.