Low-Tide
These wet rocks where the tide has been,Barnacled white and weeded brownAnd slimed beneath to a beautiful green,These wet rocks where the tide went downWill show again when the tide is highFaint and perilous, far from shore,No place to dream, but a place to die,--The bottom of the sea once more.There was a child that wandered throughA giant’s empty house all day,--House full of wonderful things and new,But no fit place for a child to play.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Low-Tide is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #59167; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Low-Tide, in Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59167, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/millay-poems/low-tide.html, id L24370.
Form and metre
Low-Tide is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
See 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 -A-ABCBCDEDE been · brownA · green · downA · highB · shoreC · dieB · moreC · throughD · dayE · newD · playE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| These wet rocks where the tide has been, | 8 | ········ |
| Barnacled white and weeded brown | 8 | /˘˘··/˘· |
| And slimed beneath to a beautiful green, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| These wet rocks where the tide went down | 8 | ········ |
| Will show again when the tide is high | 9 | ··˘/····· |
| Faint and perilous, far from shore, | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| No place to dream, but a place to die,-- | 9 | ········· |
| The bottom of the sea once more. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| There was a child that wandered through | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| A giant’s empty house all day,-- | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| House full of wonderful things and new, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But no fit place for a child to play. | 9 | ········· |
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.