Fays
One secret night, I stood where ocean poursEternal waters on the yellow shores,And saw the drift of fays that Prosper saw:(Their feet had no more sound than blowing straw.)And little hands held light in little handsThey chased a fleeing billow down the sands,But turned in the nick o’ time, and mad with gleeRaced back again before the swelling sea.
Words in this poem
- prosper v. t.
- To favor; to render successful. [F. prospérer v. i., or L. prosperare, v. i., or L. prosperare, v. t., fr. prosper or prosperus. See Prosperous.]
- billow n.
- A great wave or surge of the sea or other water, caused usually by violent wind. [Cf. Icel. bylgja billow, Dan. bölge, Sw. bölja; akin to MHG. bulge billow, bag, and to E. bulge. See Bulge.]
- nick n.
- A notch cut into something; as: (a) A score for keeping an account; a reckoning. [Akin to Nock.]
- glee n.
- Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Fays 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, Fays, 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/fays.html, id L24776.
Form and metre
Fays is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCCDD poursA · shoresA · sawB · strawB · handsC · sandsC · gleeD · seaD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| One secret night, I stood where ocean pours | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Eternal waters on the yellow shores, | 10 | ˘/˘/˘··/˘· |
| And saw the drift of fays that Prosper saw: | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| (Their feet had no more sound than blowing straw.) | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And little hands held light in little hands | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| They chased a fleeing billow down the sands, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| But turned in the nick o’ time, and mad with glee | 11 | ··········· |
| Raced back again before the swelling sea. | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
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.