On a Mistaken Mariner
He whistled thrice to pass the Morning Star,Thinking that near which was so very far.So I, whenas I meet my Dearest Dear,Still think that far which is so very near.
About this text
On a Mistaken Mariner is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #60663; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Hilaire Belloc, On a Mistaken Mariner, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/on-a-mistaken-mariner.html, id L21722.
Form and metre
On a Mistaken Mariner is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 AABB starA · farA · dearB · nearB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| He whistled thrice to pass the Morning Star, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Thinking that near which was so very far. | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| So I, whenas I meet my Dearest Dear, | 10 | ··/˘···/˘· |
| Still think that far which is so very near. | 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.