Analysis of Blades
Padraic Colum 1881 (County Longford) – 1972 (Enfield)
SOJOURNER, set down
Your skimming wheel;
Nothing is sharp
That we have of steel:
Nothing has edge:
Oh, whirl around
Your wheel of stone
Till our blades be ground!
Harshly, quickly, under blades
Hafted with horn and wood and bone
Went the wheel:
Narrow long knives that should be one edge,
House-knives that sliced the loaf to the heel,
And scraped scales off mackerel,
And weighty knives that were shaped like a wedge-
Stone wakened keenness m their steel:
Knives with which besom-makers pare
Their heather-stalks, and hawkers' blades
Used by men of a dozen trades;
Broad-bladed knives that cut bacon-sides,
And stumpy knives for cobblers' hides,
With hunters' knives that were thinned with wear:-
All were brought to,
All were laid on,
All were ground by
The Sojourner's wheel.
And those who filled the market-square
Saw hand and eye upon their ware
That were well schooled and scrupulous
To spend upon that task their use.
But sparks came from the eyes and met
The sparks that were from the edges whet
As eagerly and wittingly
The dullness of each blade scoured he,
And the brow he bent was like a stone.
Over the grinding-stone he sang,
'The dalesman's sword shall make you fear,
And the dirk in the grasp of the mountaineer,
likewise the pirate's blue cutlass
have left your blades long edgeless!'
the men were thinking of games of cards,
the looks of the boys were turned towards
corner where they played pitch and toss,
the women thought of the herring across
tongs to roast where pot-hooks hang,
ready and unforward men have no right to any lien
the gifts of Tubal Cain,
The gifts of our father, Tubal Cain!'
But no one drew meaning from the song
As he made an equal edge along
One side of the blade and the other one,
And polished the surface till it shone.
'Now leave a blessing on what you have done.'
'For what I have done I take my fee,
But no blessing I leave on it,' said he,
'Everybody knows,
Everybody knows
That the knife-grinder
No blessing bestows.'
Then the market-place, with wheel a-pack,
He left, and the men to their cards went back
And talked of a bird in the cocker's loft;
And of liming linnets beside the croft
The boys told between pitch and toss;
And the women laid the herring across
The tongs to roast for a sloven's meal.
And he went out beside the Peel
Tower, and through Saint Selskar's Gate,
Heading at a hearty rate
Towards the hilltops and the shades.
And three who brought back sharpened blades
To their fathers' stalls by the Tan-yard Side,
And then stayed while a blackbird cried
Quietly by their groundsills
The butcher's daughter,
The cobbler's daughter,
The hawker's daughter,
Were lost on the hills!
Scheme | xaxabcdc edabaxbafeeggfxxxa ffhxiijjd kllhexxmmkxnn oopd p jjQQ rq ssttmma auue evverrrx |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10011 1101 1011 11111 1011 1101 1111 110111 1010101 1110101 101 101111111 111101101 0111100 0101101101 111111 1111101 11010101 11110101 110111101 0111101 110110111 1011 1011 1011 011 01110101 11010111 10110100 11011111 11110101 011010101 11000100 010111101 001111101 10010111 0111111 0010011010 1010110 111111 010101111 011010101 10111101 0101101001 1111111 100111111101 011101 0111010101 111110101 111110101 1110100101 010010111 1101011111 111111111 1110111111 1001 1001 10110 11001 101011101 1100111111 011010011 011010101 01101101 0010101001 01111011 01110101 1001111 1010101 0101001 01111101 1110110111 01110101 100111 01010 01010 0110 01101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,575 |
Words | 476 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 18, 9, 13, 4, 1, 4, 2, 7, 4, 8 |
Lines Amount | 78 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 190 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 43 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:24 min read
- 58 Views
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"Blades" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/28449/blades>.
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