The New-Comers
Two swallows--each preening a long glossy feather;Now they gossip and dart through the silvery weather;Oh, praise to the Highest--two lovers together--Free, free in the fathomless world of air.
No fate to oppose and no fortune to sunder;Blue sky overhead--green sky breaking under;And their home on the cliff in the midst of the wonder,Hung high beyond fear on the gray granite stair.
Words in this poem
- fathomless a.
- Incapable of being fathomed; immeasurable; that can not be sounded.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The New-Comers 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, The New-Comers, 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/the-new-comers.html, id L24790.
Form and metre
The New-Comers is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, 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 AAA- featherA · weatherA · togetherA · air
- 2 AAA- sunderA · underA · wonderA · stair
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Two swallows--each preening a long glossy feather; | 12 | ·/˘·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Now they gossip and dart through the silvery weather; | 12 | ··/˘····/˘/˘ |
| Oh, praise to the Highest--two lovers together-- | 12 | ····/˘·/˘˘/˘ |
| Free, free in the fathomless world of air. | 10 | ····/˘˘··· |
| No fate to oppose and no fortune to sunder; | 12 | ···˘/··/˘·/˘ |
| Blue sky overhead--green sky breaking under; | 11 | ··/˘/··/˘·· |
| And their home on the cliff in the midst of the wonder, | 13 | ···········/˘ |
| Hung high beyond fear on the gray granite stair. | 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.