Blood Feud
Once, when my husband was a child, there cameTo his father's table, one who called him kin,In sunbleached corduroys paler than his skin.His look was grave and kind; he bore the nameOf the dead singer of Senlac, and his smile.Shyly and courteously he smiled and spoke;"I've been in the laurel since the winter broke;Four months, I reckon; yes, sir, quite a while."
He'd killed a score of foemen in the past,In some blood-feud, a dark and monstrous thing;To him it seemed his duty. At the lastHis enemies found him by a forest spring,Which, as he died, lay bright beneath his head,A silver shield that slowly turned to red.
Words in this poem
- shyly adv.
- In a shy or timid manner; not familiarly; with reserve.
- spoke n.
- The radius or ray of a wheel; one of the small bars which are inserted in the hub, or nave, and which serve to support the rim or felly. [OE. spoke, spake, AS, spaca; akin to D. speek, LG. speke, OHG. speihha, G. speiche. sq. root170. Cf. Spike a nail.]
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Blood Feud is in the public domain. This text is taken from Nets to Catch the Wind, Project Gutenberg ebook #6682; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Elinor Wylie, Blood Feud, in Nets to Catch the Wind (1921), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6682, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wylie-nets/blood-feud.html, id L12772.
Form and metre
Blood Feud is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.4 syllables. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ABBACDDC cameA · kinB · skinB · nameA · smileC · spokeD · brokeD · whileC
- 2 ABABCC pastA · thingB · lastA · springB · headC · redC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Once, when my husband was a child, there came | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| To his father's table, one who called him kin, | 11 | ··/˘/˘····· |
| In sunbleached corduroys paler than his skin. | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| His look was grave and kind; he bore the name | 10 | ·········· |
| Of the dead singer of Senlac, and his smile. | 11 | ···/˘······ |
| Shyly and courteously he smiled and spoke; | 11 | /˘·/˘˘˘···· |
| "I've been in the laurel since the winter broke; | 11 | ····/˘··/˘· |
| Four months, I reckon; yes, sir, quite a while." | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| He'd killed a score of foemen in the past, | 10 | ·········· |
| In some blood-feud, a dark and monstrous thing; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| To him it seemed his duty. At the last | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| His enemies found him by a forest spring, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Which, as he died, lay bright beneath his head, | 10 | ·········· |
| A silver shield that slowly turned to red. | 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.