The Middle Watch
In a blue dusk the ship asternUplifts her slender spars,With golden lights that seem to burnAmong the silver stars.Like fleets along a cloudy shoreThe constellations creep,Like planets on the ocean floorOur silent course we keep.
And over the endless plain,Out of the night forlornRises a faint refrain,A song of the day to be born--Watch, oh watch till ye find againLife and the land of morn.
From a dim West to a dark EastOur lines unwavering head,As if their motion long had ceasedAnd Time itself were dead.
Vainly we watch the deep below,Vainly the void above,They died a thousand years ago--Life and the land we love.
But over the endless plain,Out of the night forlornRises a faint refrain,A song of the day to be born--Watch, oh watch till ye find againLife and the land of morn.
Words in this poem
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Middle Watch is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems: New and Old, Project Gutenberg ebook #24405; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry John Newbolt, The Middle Watch, in Poems: New and Old (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24405, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/newbolt-poems/the-middle-watch.html, id L11379.
Form and metre
The Middle Watch is 28 lines in 5 stanzas. The commonest rhyme scheme is ABABAB, in 2 of the 5 stanzas; the rest vary or could not be confirmed. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 36% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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-ABCBC astern · sparsA · burn · starsA · shoreB · creepC · floorB · keepC
- 2 ABABAB plainA · forlornB · refrainA · bornB · againA · mornB
- 3 ABAB eastA · headB · ceasedA · deadB
- 4 ABAB belowA · aboveB · agoA · loveB
- 5 ABABAB plainA · forlornB · refrainA · bornB · againA · mornB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In a blue dusk the ship astern | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Uplifts her slender spars, | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| With golden lights that seem to burn | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Among the silver stars. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Like fleets along a cloudy shore | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| The constellations creep, | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| Like planets on the ocean floor | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Our silent course we keep. | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| And over the endless plain, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Out of the night forlorn | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Rises a faint refrain, | 6 | /˘··˘/ |
| A song of the day to be born-- | 8 | ········ |
| Watch, oh watch till ye find again | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Life and the land of morn. | 6 | ······ |
| From a dim West to a dark East | 8 | ········ |
| Our lines unwavering head, | 8 | /˘·˘/˘˘· |
| As if their motion long had ceased | 9 | ···/˘···˘ |
| And Time itself were dead. | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| Vainly we watch the deep below, | 8 | /˘······ |
| Vainly the void above, | 6 | /˘···· |
| They died a thousand years ago-- | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Life and the land we love. | 6 | ······ |
| But over the endless plain, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Out of the night forlorn | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Rises a faint refrain, | 6 | /˘··˘/ |
| A song of the day to be born-- | 8 | ········ |
| Watch, oh watch till ye find again | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Life and the land of morn. | 6 | ······ |
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.