Reapers
Black reapers with the sound of steel on stonesAre sharpening scythes. I see them place the honesIn their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done,And start their silent swinging, one by one.Black horses drive a mower through the weeds,And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds,His belly close to ground. I see the blade,Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.
Words in this poem
- mower n.
- One who, or that which, mows; a mowing machine; as, a lawn mower.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Reapers 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, Reapers, in Cane (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60093, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/toomer-cane/reapers.html, id L01558.
Form and metre
Reapers is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDD stonesA · honesA · doneB · oneB · weedsC · bleedsC · bladeD · shadeD
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| In their hip-pockets as a thing that’s done, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And start their silent swinging, one by one. | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Black horses drive a mower through the weeds, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| His belly close to ground. I see the blade, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade. | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
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.