Barnacles
My soul is sailing through the sea,But the Past is heavy and hindereth me.The Past hath crusted cumbrous shellsThat hold the flesh of cold sea-mellsAbout my soul.The huge waves wash, the high waves roll,Each barnacle clingeth and worketh doleAnd hindereth me from sailing!
Old Past let go, and drop i' the seaTill fathomless waters cover thee!For I am living but thou art dead;Thou drawest back, I strive aheadThe Day to find.Thy shells unbind! Night comes behind,I needs must hurry with the windAnd trim me best for sailing.
Words in this poem
- crusted a.
- Incrusted; covered with, or containing, crust; as, old, crusted port wine.
- cumbrous a.
- Rendering action or motion difficult or toilsome; serving to obstruct or hinder; burdensome; clogging.
- fathomless a.
- Incapable of being fathomed; immeasurable; that can not be sounded.
- ahead adv.
- In or to the front; in advance; onward. [Pref. a- + head.]
- needs adv.
- Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; -- often with must, and equivalent to of need. [Orig. gen. of need, used as an adverb. Cf. - wards.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Barnacles is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Sidney Lanier, Project Gutenberg ebook #579; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sidney Lanier, Barnacles, in Poems (1884), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #579, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lanier-poems/barnacles.html, id L07697.
Form and metre
Barnacles is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 75% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.9 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AABBCCC- seaA · meA · shellsB · mellsB · soulC · rollC · doleC · sailing
- 2 AABBCCC- seaA · theeA · deadB · aheadB · findC · behindC · windC · sailing
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My soul is sailing through the sea, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But the Past is heavy and hindereth me. | 10 | ····/˘·/˘· |
| The Past hath crusted cumbrous shells | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| That hold the flesh of cold sea-mells | 8 | ········ |
| About my soul. | 4 | ···· |
| The huge waves wash, the high waves roll, | 8 | ········ |
| Each barnacle clingeth and worketh dole | 10 | ·/˘˘/˘·/˘· |
| And hindereth me from sailing! | 8 | ·/˘˘··/˘ |
| Old Past let go, and drop i' the sea | 9 | ········· |
| Till fathomless waters cover thee! | 9 | ·/˘˘/˘/˘· |
| For I am living but thou art dead; | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Thou drawest back, I strive ahead | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| The Day to find. | 4 | ···· |
| Thy shells unbind! Night comes behind, | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| I needs must hurry with the wind | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And trim me best for sailing. | 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.