Many Inventions
And if ye doubt the tale I tell,Steer through the South Pacific swell;Go where the branching coral hivesUnending strife of endless lives,Where, leagued about the 'wildered boat,The rainbow jellies fill and float;And, lilting where the laver lingers,The starfish trips on all her fingers;Where, 'neath his myriad spines ashock,The sea-egg ripples down the rock;An orange wonder daily guessed,From darkness where the cuttles rest,Moored o'er the darker deeps that hideThe blind white sea-snake and his brideWho, drowsing, nose the long-lost shipsLet down through darkness to their lips.
Words in this poem
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- myriad n.
- The number of ten thousand; ten thousand persons or things. [Gr. myriade.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Many Inventions is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, Many Inventions, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/many-inventions.html, id L20353.
Form and metre
Many Inventions is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH tellA · swellA · hivesB · livesB · boatC · floatC · lingersD · fingersD · ashockE · rockE · guessedF · restF · hideG · brideG · shipsH · lipsH
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And if ye doubt the tale I tell, | 8 | ········ |
| Steer through the South Pacific swell; | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Go where the branching coral hives | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Unending strife of endless lives, | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| Where, leagued about the 'wildered boat, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The rainbow jellies fill and float; | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| And, lilting where the laver lingers, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| The starfish trips on all her fingers; | 9 | ·/·····/˘ |
| Where, 'neath his myriad spines ashock, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The sea-egg ripples down the rock; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| An orange wonder daily guessed, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| From darkness where the cuttles rest, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Moored o'er the darker deeps that hide | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The blind white sea-snake and his bride | 8 | ········ |
| Who, drowsing, nose the long-lost ships | 8 | ········ |
| Let down through darkness to their lips. | 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.