Adrift! a little boat adrift
Adrift! A little boat adrift!And night is coming down!Will no one guide a little boatUnto the nearest town?
So sailors say, on yesterday,Just as the dusk was brown,One little boat gave up its strife,And gurgled down and down.
But angels say, on yesterday,Just as the dawn was red,One little boat o'erspent with galesRetrimmed its masts, redecked its sailsExultant, onward sped!
Words in this poem
- adrift adv.
- Floating at random; in a drifting condition; at the mercy of wind and waves. Also fig. [Pref. a- (for on) + drift.]
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- exultant a.
- Inclined to exult; characterized by, or expressing, exultation; rejoicing triumphantly. [L. exsultans, exsultantis, p. pr. of exsultare. See Exult.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Adrift! a little boat adrift is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Project Gutenberg ebook #12242; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emily Dickinson, Adrift! a little boat adrift, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/adrift-a-little-boat-adrift.html, id L19072.
Form and metre
Adrift! a little boat adrift is 13 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 adrift · downA · boat · townA
- 2 -A-A yesterday · brownA · strife · downA
- 3 -ABBA yesterday · redA · galesB · sailsB · spedA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Adrift! A little boat adrift! | 8 | ˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| And night is coming down! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Will no one guide a little boat | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Unto the nearest town? | 6 | ···/˘· |
| So sailors say, on yesterday, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Just as the dusk was brown, | 6 | ······ |
| One little boat gave up its strife, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And gurgled down and down. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| But angels say, on yesterday, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Just as the dawn was red, | 6 | ······ |
| One little boat o'erspent with gales | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails | 8 | ········ |
| Exultant, onward sped! | 6 | ˘/˘/˘· |
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.