Song
The boat is chafing at our long delay,And we must leave too soonThe spicy sea-pinks and the inborne spray,The tawny sands, the moon.
Keep us, O Thetis, in our western flight!Watch from thy pearly throneOur vessel, plunging deeper into nightTo reach a land unknown.
About this text
Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Davidson, Song, in Poems (1857–1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-john-davidson/song.html, id L16274.
Form and metre
Song is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABAB delayA · soonB · sprayA · moonB
- 2 ABAB flightA · throneB · nightA · unknownB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The boat is chafing at our long delay, | 11 | ···/˘·/˘·˘/ |
| And we must leave too soon | 6 | ······ |
| The spicy sea-pinks and the inborne spray, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The tawny sands, the moon. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Keep us, O Thetis, in our western flight! | 11 | ···/˘·/˘/˘· |
| Watch from thy pearly throne | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Our vessel, plunging deeper into night | 11 | /˘/˘/˘/˘··· |
| To reach a land unknown. | 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.