Fuel

Lola Ridge 1873 – 1941



What of the silence of the keys
And silvery hands? The iron sings…
Though bows lie broken on the strings,
The fly-wheels turn eternally…

Bring fuel - drive the fires high…
Throw all this artist-lumber in
And foolish dreams of making things…
(Ten million men are called to die.)

As for the common men apart,
Who sweat to keep their common breath,
And have no hour for books or art -
What dreams have these to hide from death!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 08, 2023

24 sec read
89

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAAX BXAB CDCD
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 430
Words 82
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4

Lola Ridge

Lola Ridge was an anarchist poet and an influential editor of avant-garde feminist and Marxist publications best remembered for her long poems and poetic sequences She along with other political poets of the early Modernist period has been coming under increasing critical scrutiny at the beginning of the twenty-first century more…

All Lola Ridge poems | Lola Ridge Books

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    "Fuel" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/25902/fuel>.

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    Quiz

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    Lewis Carroll wrote: "You are old father William, the young man said..."
    A "and your hair has become very white"
    B "and you're going to die tonight"
    C "and your eyes have become less bright"
    D "and you seem to have lost your sight"