A Song at the Start
Oh, down the quick river our galley is going,With a sound in the cordage, a beam on the sail:The wind of the canyon our loose hair is blowing,And the clouds of the morning are glad of the gale.
Around the swift prow little billows are breaking,And flinging their foam in a glory of light;Now the shade of a rock on the river is shaking,And a wave leaps high up growing suddenly white.
The weight of the whole world is light as a feather,And the peaks rise in silence and westerly flee:Oh, the world and the poet are singing together,And from the far cliff comes a sound of the sea.
Words in this poem
- canyon n.
- The English form of the Spanish word Cañon.
- westerly a.
- Of or pertaining to the west; toward the west; coming from the west; western.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Song at the Start is in the public domain. This text is taken from The man with the hoe, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #67012; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Markham, A Song at the Start, in The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #67012, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-man-with-hoe/a-song-at-the-start.html, id L24769.
Form and metre
A Song at the Start is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in anapaestic 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 ABAB goingA · sailB · blowingA · galeB
- 2 ABAB breakingA · lightB · shakingA · whiteB
- 3 ABAB featherA · fleeB · togetherA · 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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Oh, down the quick river our galley is going, | 13 | ····/˘/˘/˘·/˘ |
| With a sound in the cordage, a beam on the sail: | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| The wind of the canyon our loose hair is blowing, | 13 | ····/˘/˘···/˘ |
| And the clouds of the morning are glad of the gale. | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| Around the swift prow little billows are breaking, | 12 | ·····/˘/˘·/˘ |
| And flinging their foam in a glory of light; | 11 | ·/˘····/˘·· |
| Now the shade of a rock on the river is shaking, | 13 | ········/˘·/˘ |
| And a wave leaps high up growing suddenly white. | 12 | ······/˘/˘˘· |
| The weight of the whole world is light as a feather, | 12 | ··········/˘ |
| And the peaks rise in silence and westerly flee: | 12 | ·····/˘·/˘˘· |
| Oh, the world and the poet are singing together, | 13 | ·····/˘·/˘˘/˘ |
| And from the far cliff comes a sound of the sea. | 11 | ··········· |
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.