Beside the Idle Summer Sea
BESIDE the idle summer seaAnd in the vacant summer days,Light Love came fluting down the ways,Where you were loitering with me.
Who has not welcomed, even as we,That jocund minstrel and his laysBeside the idle summer seaAnd in the vacant summer days?
We listened, we were fancy-free;And lo! in terror and amazeWe stood alone—alone at gazeWith an implacable memoryBeside the idle summer sea.
Words in this poem
- jocund
- Merry; cheerful; gay; airy; lively; sportive. [L. jocundus, jucundus, orig., helpful, fr. juvare to help. See Aid.]
- amaze v. t.
- To bewilder; to stupefy; to bring into a maze. [Pref. a- + maze.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Beside the Idle Summer Sea is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #1568; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: W. E. Henley, Beside the Idle Summer Sea, in Poems (1898), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1568, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/henley-poems/beside-the-idle-summer-sea.html, id L12380.
Form and metre
Beside the Idle Summer Sea is 13 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 46% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 ABBA seaA · daysB · waysB · meA
- 2 ABAB weA · laysB · seaA · daysB
- 3 ABB-A freeA · amazeB · gazeB · memory · seaA
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| BESIDE the idle summer sea | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| And in the vacant summer days, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Light Love came fluting down the ways, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Where you were loitering with me. | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| Who has not welcomed, even as we, | 8 | ···/˘/·· |
| That jocund minstrel and his lays | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Beside the idle summer sea | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| And in the vacant summer days? | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| We listened, we were fancy-free; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And lo! in terror and amaze | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| We stood alone—alone at gaze | 8 | ··˘/˘/·· |
| With an implacable memory | 9 | ··˘/˘˘/˘˘ |
| Beside the idle summer sea. | 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.