The Sea Gypsy
I am fevered with the sunset,I am fretful with the bay,For the wander-thirst is on meAnd my soul is in Cathay.
There's a schooner in the offing,With her topsails shot with fire,And my heart has gone aboard herFor the Islands of Desire.
I must forth again to-morrow!With the sunset I must beHull down on the trail of raptureIn the wonder of the sea.
Words in this poem
- aboard adv.
- On board; into or within a ship or boat; hence, into or within a railway car. [Pref. a- on, in + board.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Sea Gypsy is in the public domain. This text is taken from More Songs From Vagabondia, Project Gutenberg ebook #18007; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Bliss Carman, The Sea Gypsy, in More Songs from Vagabondia (1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18007, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carman-vagabondia/the-sea-gypsy.html, id L24698.
Form and metre
The Sea Gypsy is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 -A-A sunset · bayA · me · cathayA
- 2 -A-A offing · fireA · her · desireA
- 3 -A-A morrow · beA · rapture · seaA
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I am fevered with the sunset, | 8 | ··/˘··/· |
| I am fretful with the bay, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| For the wander-thirst is on me | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| And my soul is in Cathay. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| There's a schooner in the offing, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| With her topsails shot with fire, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And my heart has gone aboard her | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| For the Islands of Desire. | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| I must forth again to-morrow! | 8 | ···˘/·/˘ |
| With the sunset I must be | 7 | ··/···· |
| Hull down on the trail of rapture | 8 | ······/˘ |
| In the wonder of the sea. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
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.