The Pike
In the brown water,Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine,Liquid and cool in the shade of the reeds,A pike dozed.Lost among the shadows of stemsHe lay unnoticed.Suddenly he flicked his tail,And a green-and-copper brightnessRan under the water.
Out from under the reedsCame the olive-green light,And orange flashed upThrough the sun-thickened water.So the fish passed across the pool,Green and copper,A darkness and a gleam,And the blurred reflections of the willows on the opposite bankReceived it.
Words in this poem
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Pike is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, Project Gutenberg ebook #1020; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Amy Lowell, The Pike, in Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1020, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lowell-amy-sword-blades/the-pike.html, id L08240.
Form and metre
The Pike is 18 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.8 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 28% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic 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 A-------A waterA · sunshine · reeds · dozed · stems · unnoticed · tail · brightness · waterA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| In the brown water, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine, | 10 | ··/˘·˘··/· |
| Liquid and cool in the shade of the reeds, | 10 | /˘········ |
| A pike dozed. | 3 | ··· |
| Lost among the shadows of stems | 8 | ····/··· |
| He lay unnoticed. | 5 | ··˘/˘ |
| Suddenly he flicked his tail, | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| And a green-and-copper brightness | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Ran under the water. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Out from under the reeds | 6 | ······ |
| Came the olive-green light, | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| And orange flashed up | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Through the sun-thickened water. | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| So the fish passed across the pool, | 9 | ····˘˘/·· |
| Green and copper, | 4 | ··/˘ |
| A darkness and a gleam, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And the blurred reflections of the willows on the opposite bank | 15 | ···˘/˘··/···/˘· |
| Received it. | 3 | ˘/· |
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.