Carma
Wind is in the cane. Come along.Cane leaves swaying, rusty with talk,Scratching choruses above the guinea’s squawk,Wind is in the cane. Come along.
Words in this poem
- squawk v. i.
- To utter a shrill, abrupt scream; to squeak harshly. Squawking thrush (Zoöl.), the missel turush; -- so called from its note when alarmed. [See Squeak.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carma is in the public domain. This text is taken from Cane, Project Gutenberg ebook #60093; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Jean Toomer, Carma, in Cane (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60093, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/toomer-cane/carma.html, id L01562.
Form and metre
Carma is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The lines average 8.5 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 ABBA alongA · talkB · squawkB · alongA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Wind is in the cane. Come along. | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Cane leaves swaying, rusty with talk, | 8 | ··/˘/˘·· |
| Scratching choruses above the guinea’s squawk, | 10 | /˘/˘···/˘· |
| Wind is in the cane. Come along. | 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.