The Wanderer
Upon a mountain height, far from the sea,I found a shell,And to my listening ear the lonely thingEver a song of ocean seemed to sing,Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell.
How came the shell upon that mountain height?Ah, who can sayWhether there dropped by some too careless hand,Or whether there cast when Ocean swept the Land,Ere the Eternal had ordained the Day?
Strange, was it not? Far from its native deep,One song it sang,--Sang of the awful mysteries of the tide,Sang of the misty sea, profound and wide,--Ever with echoes of the ocean rang.
And as the shell upon the mountain heightSings of the sea,So do I ever, leagues and leagues away,--So do I ever, wandering where I may,--Sing, O my home! sing, O my home! of thee.
About this text
The Wanderer is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Little Book of Western Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #9606; 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, The Wanderer, in A Little Book of Western Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9606, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/field-western-verse/the-wanderer.html, id L24644.
Form and metre
The Wanderer is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 -ABBA sea · shellA · thingB · singB · tellA
- 2 -ABBA height · sayA · handB · landB · dayA
- 3 -ABBA deep · sangA · tideB · wideB · rangA
- 4 -ABBA height · seaA · awayB · mayB · theeA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| I found a shell, | 4 | ···· |
| And to my listening ear the lonely thing | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| How came the shell upon that mountain height? | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Ah, who can say | 4 | ···· |
| Whether there dropped by some too careless hand, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Or whether there cast when Ocean swept the Land, | 10 | ······/··· |
| Ere the Eternal had ordained the Day? | 10 | ··˘/˘·˘/·· |
| Strange, was it not? Far from its native deep, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| One song it sang,-- | 4 | ···· |
| Sang of the awful mysteries of the tide, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Sang of the misty sea, profound and wide,-- | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Ever with echoes of the ocean rang. | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| And as the shell upon the mountain height | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Sings of the sea, | 4 | ···· |
| So do I ever, leagues and leagues away,-- | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| So do I ever, wandering where I may,-- | 10 | ···//˘˘··· |
| Sing, O my home! sing, O my home! of thee. | 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.