Ethiopia Saluting the Colors
Who are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human,With your woolly-white and turban’d head, and bare bony feet?Why rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet?
(’Tis while our army lines Carolina’s sands and pines,Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia com’st to me,As under doughty Sherman I march toward the sea.)
Me master years a hundred since from my parents sunder’d,A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught,Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought.
No further does she say, but lingering all the day,Her high-borne turban’d head she wags, and rolls her darkling eye,And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons moving by.
What is it fateful woman, so blear, hardly human?Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow, red and green?Are the things so strange and marvelous you see or have seen?
Words in this poem
- roadside n.
- Land adjoining a road or highway; the part of a road or highway that borders the traveled part. Also used ajectively.
- hovel n.
- An open shed for sheltering cattle, or protecting produce, etc., from the weather. Brande & C. [OE. hovel, hovil, prob. a dim. fr. AS. hof house; akin to D. & G. hof court, yard, Icel. hof temple; cf. Prov. E. hove to take shelter, heuf shelter, home.]
- doughty a.
- Able; strong; valiant; redoubtable; as, a doughty hero.
- darkling a.
- Becoming dark or gloomy; frowing.
- fateful a.
- Having the power of serving or accomplishing fate.
- blear a.
- Dim or sore with water or rheum; -- said of the eyes. [See Blear, v.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Ethiopia Saluting the Colors is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, Ethiopia Saluting the Colors, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/ethiopia-saluting-the-colors.html, id L03961.
Form and metre
Ethiopia Saluting the Colors is 15 lines in 5 stanzas of 3 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines. The metre is iambic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%). 82% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.7 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in iambic heptameter.
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 human · feetA · greetA
- 2 -AA pines · meA · seaA
- 3 -AA sunder'd · caughtA · broughtA
- 4 -AA day · eyeA · byA
- 5 AAA humanA · greenA · seenA
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 heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Who are you dusky woman, so ancient hardly human, | 14 | ···/˘/˘·/˘/˘/˘ |
| With your woolly-white and turban’d head, and bare bony feet? | 14 | ··/˘··/˘···/˘· |
| Why rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet? | 14 | ·/˘··/·····/˘· |
| (’Tis while our army lines Carolina’s sands and pines, | 14 | ··/˘/˘··˘/˘··· |
| Forth from thy hovel door thou Ethiopia com’st to me, | 14 | ···/˘···˘/˘··· |
| As under doughty Sherman I march toward the sea.) | 13 | ···/˘/˘······ |
| Me master years a hundred since from my parents sunder’d, | 14 | ·/˘··/˘···/˘·· |
| A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught, | 14 | ·/˘······/˘··· |
| Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought. | 14 | ·/˘·˘/···/˘/˘· |
| No further does she say, but lingering all the day, | 13 | ·/˘····/˘˘··· |
| Her high-borne turban’d head she wags, and rolls her darkling eye, | 14 | ···/˘······/˘· |
| And courtesies to the regiments, the guidons moving by. | 14 | ·/˘··/˘˘···/˘· |
| What is it fateful woman, so blear, hardly human? | 13 | ···/˘/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Why wag your head with turban bound, yellow, red and green? | 13 | ·····/˘·/˘··· |
| Are the things so strange and marvelous you see or have seen? | 14 | ······/˘˘····· |
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.