Anchored
If thro' the sea of night which here surrounds me,I could swim out beyond the farthest star,Break every barrier of circumstance that bounds me,And greet the Sun of sweeter life afar,
Tho' near you there is passion, grief, and sorrow,And out there rest and joy and peace and all,I should renounce that beckoning for to-morrow,I could not choose to go beyond your call.
Words in this poem
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Anchored is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Project Gutenberg ebook #18338; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Paul Laurence Dunbar, Anchored, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/anchored.html, id L00849.
Form and metre
Anchored is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.6 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic 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.
- 1 ABAB meA · starB · meA · afarB
- 2 ABAB sorrowA · allB · morrowA · callB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| If thro' the sea of night which here surrounds me, | 11 | ········˘/· |
| I could swim out beyond the farthest star, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Break every barrier of circumstance that bounds me, | 12 | ·/˘/˘·/˘···· |
| And greet the Sun of sweeter life afar, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Tho' near you there is passion, grief, and sorrow, | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| And out there rest and joy and peace and all, | 10 | ·········· |
| I should renounce that beckoning for to-morrow, | 11 | ··˘/·/˘··/˘ |
| I could not choose to go beyond your call. | 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.