The Lee Shore
Sleet! and Hail! and Thunder!And ye Winds that rave,Till the sands thereunderTinge the sullen wave--
Winds, that like a Demon,Howl with horrid noteRound the toiling Seaman,In his tossing boat--
From his humble dwelling,On the shingly shore,Where the billows swelling,Keep such hollow roar--
From that weeping Woman,Seeking with her criesSuccor superhumanFrom the frowning skies--
From the Urchin piningFor his Father's knee--From the lattice shining--Drive him out to sea!
Let broad leagues disseverHim from yonder foam--Oh, God! to think Man everComes too near his Home!
Words in this poem
- sleet n.
- The part of a mortar extending from the chamber to the trunnions.
- thereunder adv.
- Under that or this.
- sullen a.
- Lonely; solitary; desolate. Wyclif (Job iii. 14). [OE. solein, solain, lonely, sullen; through Old French fr. (assumed) LL. solanus solitary, fr. L. solus alone. See Sole, a.]
- horrid a.
- Rough; rugged; bristling. [L. horridus. See Horror, and cf. Ordure.]
- shingly a.
- Abounding with shingle, or gravel.
- dissever v. t.
- To part in two; to sever thoroughly; to sunder; to disunite; to separate; to disperse. [OE. dessevrer; pref. des- (L. dis-) + sevrer to sever, F. sevrer to wean, L. separate to separate. In this word the prefix is intensive. See Dis-, and Sever.]
- yonder adv.
- At a distance, but within view. [OE. yonder, ýonder; cf. OD. ginder, Goth. jaindr there. Yond, adv.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Lee Shore is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood, Project Gutenberg ebook #15652; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hood, The Lee Shore, in The Song of the Shirt, and Other Poems (1826–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15652, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poetical-works/the-lee-shore.html, id L20102.
Form and metre
The Lee Shore is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 4 of its 6 stanzas. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%).
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
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 thunderA · raveB · thereunderA · waveB
- 2 ABAB demonA · noteB · seamanA · boatB
- 3 ABAB dwellingA · shoreB · swellingA · roarB
- 4 -A-A woman · criesA · superhuman · skiesA
- 5 ABAB piningA · kneeB · shiningA · seaB
- 6 -A-A dissever · foamA · ever · homeA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Sleet! and Hail! and Thunder! | 6 | ····/˘ |
| And ye Winds that rave, | 5 | ····· |
| Till the sands thereunder | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
| Tinge the sullen wave-- | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Winds, that like a Demon, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Howl with horrid note | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Round the toiling Seaman, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| In his tossing boat-- | 5 | ··/˘· |
| From his humble dwelling, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| On the shingly shore, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Where the billows swelling, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Keep such hollow roar-- | 5 | ··/˘· |
| From that weeping Woman, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Seeking with her cries | 5 | /˘··· |
| Succor superhuman | 6 | /˘·˘/˘ |
| From the frowning skies-- | 5 | ··/˘· |
| From the Urchin pining | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| For his Father's knee-- | 5 | ··/˘· |
| From the lattice shining-- | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| Drive him out to sea! | 5 | ····· |
| Let broad leagues dissever | 6 | ···˘/˘ |
| Him from yonder foam-- | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Oh, God! to think Man ever | 6 | ·····/ |
| Comes too near his Home! | 5 | ····· |
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.