The Weeping Burgher
It is with a strange maliceThat I distort the world.
Ah! that ill humorsShould mask as white girls.And ah! that ScaramoucheShould have a black barouche.
The sorry verities!Yet in excess, continual,There is cure of sorrow.
Permit that if as ghost I comeAmong the people burning in me still,I come as belle designOf foppish line.
And I, then, tortured for old speech,A white of wildly woven rings;I, weeping in a calcined heart,My hands such sharp, imagined things.
Words in this poem
- barouche n.
- A four-wheeled carriage, with a falling top, a seat on the outside for the driver, and two double seats on the inside arranged so that the sitters on the front seat face those on the back seat. [G. barutsche, It. baroccio, biroccio, LL. barrotium, fr. L. birotus two-wheeled; bi=bis twice + rota wheel.]
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
- belle n.
- A young lady of superior beauty and attractions; a handsome lady, or one who attracts notice in society; a fair lady. [F. belle, fem. of bel, beau, beautiful, fine. See Beau.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Weeping Burgher is in the public domain. This text is taken from Harmonium, Project Gutenberg ebook #78743; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Wallace Stevens, The Weeping Burgher, in Harmonium (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #78743, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevens-harmonium/the-weeping-burgher.html, id L01043.
Form and metre
The Weeping Burgher is 17 lines in 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.9 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 --AA humors · girls · scaramoucheA · baroucheA
- 4 --AA come · still · designA · lineA
- 5 -A-A speech · ringsA · heart · thingsA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| It is with a strange malice | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| That I distort the world. | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| Ah! that ill humors | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Should mask as white girls. | 5 | ····· |
| And ah! that Scaramouche | 6 | ······ |
| Should have a black barouche. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| The sorry verities! | 6 | ·/˘/˘˘ |
| Yet in excess, continual, | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘˘ |
| There is cure of sorrow. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Permit that if as ghost I come | 8 | ˘/······ |
| Among the people burning in me still, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| I come as belle design | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Of foppish line. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| And I, then, tortured for old speech, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A white of wildly woven rings; | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| I, weeping in a calcined heart, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| My hands such sharp, imagined things. | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
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.