Analysis of Butch Weldy

Edgar Lee Masters 1868 (Garnett) – 1950 (Elkins Park)



After I got religion and steadied down
They gave me a job in the canning works,
And every morning I had to fill
The tank in the yard with gasoline,
That fed the blow-fires in the sheds
To heat the soldering irons.
And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it,
Carrying buckets full of the stuff.
One morning, as I stood there pouring,
The air grew still and seemed to heave,
And I shot up as the tank exploded,
And down I came with both legs broken,
And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs.
For someone left a blow-fire going,
And something sucked the flame in the tank.
The Circuit Judge said whoever did it
Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so
Old Rhodes' son didn't have to pay me.
And I sat on the witness stand as blind
As Jack the Fiddler, saying over and over,
"l didn't know him at all."


Scheme ABCDEFGHIJKLMINGOPQRS
Poetic Form
Metre 10110100101 1110100101 0100101111 01001110 110110001 11010010 0110010010111 100101101 110111110 01110111 0111101010 011111110 01111101011 111011010 010101001 0101101011 1010101101 111101111 0111010111 1101001010010 1101111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 783
Words 160
Sentences 7
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 21
Lines Amount 21
Letters per line (avg) 29
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 613
Words per stanza (avg) 157
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

48 sec read
102

Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist. more…

All Edgar Lee Masters poems | Edgar Lee Masters Books

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