To Cruel Ocean
Where are the hapless shipmen?--disappeared,Gone down, where witness none, save Night, hath been,Ye deep, deep waves, of kneeling mothers feared,What dismal tales know ye of things unseen?Tales that ye tell your whispering selves betweenThe while in clouds to the flood-tide ye pour;And this it is that gives you, as I ween,Those mournful voices, mournful evermore,When ye come in at eve to us who dwell on shore.
Words in this poem
- hapless a.
- Without hap or luck; luckless; unfortunate; unlucky; unhappy; as, hapless youth; hapless maid.
- dismal a.
- Fatal; ill-omened; unlucky. [Formerly a noun; e. g., "I trow it was in the dismalle." Chaucer. Of uncertain origin; but perh. (as suggested by Skeat) from OF. disme, F. dîme, tithe, the phr]
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
- ween v. i.
- To think; to imagine; to fancy. [OE. wenen, AS. w, fr. w hope, expectation, opinion; akin to D. waan, OFries. w, OS. & OHG. wan, G. wahn delusion, Icel. van hope, expectation, Goth. w, and D. w]
- evermore adv.
- During eternity; always; forever; for an indefinite period; at all times; -- often used substantively with for.
- dwell v. i.
- To delay; to linger. [OE. dwellen, dwelien, to err, linger, AS. dwellan to deceive, hinder, delay, dwelian to err; akin to Icel. dvelja to delay, tarry, Sw. dväljas to dwell, Dan. dv]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Cruel Ocean is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, the various hands translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Victor Hugo, To Cruel Ocean, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/to-cruel-ocean.html, id L26862.
Form and metre
To Cruel Ocean is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
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 A-ABBCBCC disappearedA · been · fearedA · unseenB · betweenB · pourC · weenB · evermoreC · shoreC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Where are the hapless shipmen?--disappeared, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Gone down, where witness none, save Night, hath been, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Ye deep, deep waves, of kneeling mothers feared, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| What dismal tales know ye of things unseen? | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Tales that ye tell your whispering selves between | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The while in clouds to the flood-tide ye pour; | 10 | ·········· |
| And this it is that gives you, as I ween, | 10 | ·········· |
| Those mournful voices, mournful evermore, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘/˘· |
| When ye come in at eve to us who dwell on shore. | 12 | ············ |
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.