Coromandel Fishers
Rise, brothers, rise, the wakening skies pray to the morning light,The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child that has cried all night.Come, let us gather our nets from the shore, and set our catamarans free,To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for we are the sons of the sea.
No longer delay, let us hasten away in the track of the sea-gull's call,The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother, the waves are our comrades all.What though we toss at the fall of the sun where the hand of the sea-god drives?He who holds the storm by the hair, will hide in his breast our lives.
Sweet is the shade of the cocoanut glade, and the scent of the mango grove,And sweet are the sands at the full o' the moon with the sound of the voices we love.But sweeter, O brothers, the kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam's glee:Row, brothers, row to the blue of the verge, where the low sky mates with the sea.
Words in this poem
- wakening n.
- The act of one who wakens; esp., the act of ceasing to sleep; an awakening.
- wealth n.
- Weal; welfare; prosperity; good. [OE. welthe, from wele; cf. D. weelde luxury. See Weal prosperity.]
- glade n.
- An open passage through a wood; a grassy open or cleared space in a forest. [Prob. of Scand. origin, and akin to glad, a.; cf. also W. golead, goleuad, a lighting, illumination, fr. goleu light, clear, bright, goleu fwlch glade, lit., a ]
- glee n.
- Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Coromandel Fishers is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Golden Threshold, with an introduction by Arthur Symons (Hyderabad, 1905; London, John Lane, 1905), Project Gutenberg ebook #680; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sarojini Naidu, Coromandel Fishers, in The Golden Threshold (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #680, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/naidu-golden-threshold/coromandel-fishers.html, id L27478.
Form and metre
Coromandel Fishers is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See 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 AABB lightA · nightA · freeB · seaB
- 2 AABB callA · allA · drivesB · livesB
- 3 AABB groveA · loveA · gleeB · 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 iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Rise, brothers, rise, the wakening skies pray to the morning light, | 14 | ·/˘··/˘····/˘· |
| The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child that has cried all night. | 19 | ···˘/·············· |
| Come, let us gather our nets from the shore, and set our catamarans free, | 17 | ···/˘/······/˘/˘· |
| To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for we are the sons of the sea. | 18 | ·/˘·/˘············ |
| No longer delay, let us hasten away in the track of the sea-gull's call, | 19 | ·/˘˘/··/˘˘/········ |
| The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother, the waves are our comrades all. | 19 | ···//˘···//˘···//·· |
| What though we toss at the fall of the sun where the hand of the sea-god drives? | 18 | ·················· |
| He who holds the storm by the hair, will hide in his breast our lives. | 15 | ·············/· |
| Sweet is the shade of the cocoanut glade, and the scent of the mango grove, | 18 | ······/˘˘······/˘· |
| And sweet are the sands at the full o' the moon with the sound of the voices we love. | 20 | ················/˘·· |
| But sweeter, O brothers, the kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam's glee: | 19 | ·/˘·/˘············· |
| Row, brothers, row to the blue of the verge, where the low sky mates with the sea. | 18 | ·/˘··············· |
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.