The Sea of Sunset
This is the land the sunset washes,These are the banks of the Yellow Sea;Where it rose, or whither it rushes,These are the western mystery!
Night after night her purple trafficStrews the landing with opal bales;Merchantmen poise upon horizons,Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.
Words in this poem
- whither adv.
- To what place; -- used interrogatively; as, whither goest thou [OE. whider. AS. hwider; akin to E. where, who; cf. Goth. hvadre whither. See Who, and cf. Hither, Thither.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Sea of Sunset 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, The Sea of Sunset, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/the-sea-of-sunset.html, id L03607.
Form and metre
The Sea of Sunset is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 81% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic pentameter.
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.
- 2 -A-A traffic · balesA · horizons · sailsA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| This is the land the sunset washes, | 9 | ·····/·/˘ |
| These are the banks of the Yellow Sea; | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Where it rose, or whither it rushes, | 9 | ····/˘·/˘ |
| These are the western mystery! | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
| Night after night her purple traffic | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Strews the landing with opal bales; | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| Merchantmen poise upon horizons, | 9 | /˘˘···˘/˘ |
| Dip, and vanish with fairy sails. | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
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.