Analysis of The Word Of An Engineer

James Weldon Johnson 1871 (Jacksonville) – 1938 (Wiscasset)



'She's built of steel
From deck to keel,
And bolted strong and tight;
In scorn she'll sail
The fiercest gale,
And pierce the darkest night.

'The builder's art
Has proved each part
Throughout her breadth and length;
Deep in the hulk,
Of her mighty bulk,
Ten thousand Titans' strength.'

The tempest howls,
The Ice Wolf prowls,
The winds they shift and veer,
But calm I sleep,
And faith I keep
In the word of an engineer.

Along the trail
Of the slender rail
The train, like a nightmare, flies
And dashes on
Through the black-mouthed yawn
Where the cavernous tunnel lies.

Over the ridge,
Across the bridge,
Swung twixt the sky and hell,
On an iron thread
Spun from the head
Of the man in a draughtsman's cell.

And so we ride
Over land and tide,
Without a thought of fear—

Man never had
The faith in God
That he has in an engineer!


Scheme AABCCB DDEFFE GGHIIH CCJXXJ KKLMML NNH XXH
Poetic Form
Metre 1111 1111 010101 0111 0101 010101 0101 1111 010101 1001 10101 110101 0101 0111 011101 1111 0111 00111101 0101 10101 011011 0101 10111 10100101 1001 0101 110101 11101 1101 1010011 0111 10101 010111 1101 0101 11101101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 801
Words 157
Sentences 7
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 3, 3
Lines Amount 36
Letters per line (avg) 18
Words per line (avg) 4
Letters per stanza (avg) 92
Words per stanza (avg) 22
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 27, 2023

48 sec read
82

James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson was an American author, educator, lawyer, diplomat, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is best remembered for his leadership within the NAACP as well as for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and anthologies. He was also the first African-American professor at New York University. Later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University. more…

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