Valgovind's Boat Song
Waters glisten and sunbeams quiver,The wind blows fresh and free.Take my boat to your breast, O River!Carry me out to Sea!
This land is laden with fruit and grain,With never a place left free for flowers,A fruitful mother; but I am fainFor brides in their early bridal hours.
Take my boat to your breast, O River!Carry me out to Sea!
The Sea, beloved by a thousand ships,Is maiden ever, and fresh and free.Ah, for the touch of her cool green lips,Carry me out to Sea!
Take my boat to your breast, dear River,And carry it out to Sea!
Words in this poem
- fain v. t.
- To be glad ; to wish or desire.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Valgovind's Boat Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from India's Love Lyrics, Project Gutenberg ebook #8197; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Laurence Hope, Valgovind's Boat Song, in India's Love Lyrics (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8197, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hope-india/valgovind-s-boat-song.html, id L22574.
Form and metre
Valgovind's Boat Song is 16 lines in 5 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 70%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABAB quiverA · freeB · riverA · seaB
- 2 ABAB grainA · flowersB · fainA · hoursB
- 4 ABAB shipsA · freeB · lipsA · seaB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Waters glisten and sunbeams quiver, | 9 | /˘/˘·/·/˘ |
| The wind blows fresh and free. | 6 | ······ |
| Take my boat to your breast, O River! | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Carry me out to Sea! | 6 | /˘···· |
| This land is laden with fruit and grain, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| With never a place left free for flowers, | 9 | ·/·····/˘ |
| A fruitful mother; but I am fain | 9 | ·/˘/˘···· |
| For brides in their early bridal hours. | 9 | ····/˘/˘/ |
| Take my boat to your breast, O River! | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Carry me out to Sea! | 6 | /˘···· |
| The Sea, beloved by a thousand ships, | 9 | ··˘/··/˘· |
| Is maiden ever, and fresh and free. | 8 | ·/˘/···· |
| Ah, for the touch of her cool green lips, | 9 | ········· |
| Carry me out to Sea! | 6 | /˘···· |
| Take my boat to your breast, dear River, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And carry it out to Sea! | 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.