Alaskan Balladry.—Iii
I am like the wretched sealWounded by a barbed device--Helpless fellow! how I bellow,Floundering on the jagged ice!
Sitka's beauty is the steelThat hath wrought this piteous woe:Yet would I rather dieThan recover from the blow!
Still I'd rather live than die,Grievous though my torment be;Smite away, but, I pray,Smite no victim else than me!
About this text
Alaskan Balladry.—Iii is in the public domain. This text is taken from Hoosier Lyrics, Project Gutenberg ebook #36150; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Eugene Field, Alaskan Balladry.—Iii, in Hoosier Lyrics (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36150, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/field-poems/alaskan-balladry-iii.html, id L11582.
Form and metre
Alaskan Balladry.—Iii 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%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 seal · deviceA · bellow · iceA
- 2 -A-A steel · woeA · die · blowA
- 3 AA-A dieA · beA · pray · meA
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 like the wretched seal | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Wounded by a barbed device-- | 8 | /˘···˘˘/ |
| Helpless fellow! how I bellow, | 8 | /˘/˘··/˘ |
| Floundering on the jagged ice! | 8 | /˘˘···˘· |
| Sitka's beauty is the steel | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| That hath wrought this piteous woe: | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Yet would I rather die | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Than recover from the blow! | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| Still I'd rather live than die, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Grievous though my torment be; | 7 | /˘··/·· |
| Smite away, but, I pray, | 6 | ·˘/··· |
| Smite no victim else than me! | 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.