The full sea rolls and thunders
THE full sea rolls and thundersIn glory and in glee.O, bury me not in the senseless earthBut in the living sea!
Ay, bury me where it surgesA thousand miles from shore,And in its brotherly unrestI’ll range for evermore.
Words in this poem
- glee n.
- Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
- unrest n.
- Want of rest or repose; unquietness; sleeplessness; uneasiness; disquietude.
- evermore adv.
- During eternity; always; forever; for an indefinite period; at all times; -- often used substantively with for.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The full sea rolls and thunders 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, The full sea rolls and thunders, in Poems (1898), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1568, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/henley-poems/the-full-sea-rolls-and-thunders.html, id L12407.
Form and metre
The full sea rolls and thunders is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is short measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in short measure.
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 thunders · gleeA · earth · seaA
- 2 -A-A surges · shoreA · unrest · evermoreA
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 short measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| THE full sea rolls and thunders | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| In glory and in glee. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| O, bury me not in the senseless earth | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| But in the living sea! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Ay, bury me where it surges | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| A thousand miles from shore, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And in its brotherly unrest | 7 | ···/˘˘/ |
| I’ll range for evermore. | 6 | ···/˘· |
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.