The Ship of State
Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State!Sail on, O Union, strong and great!Humanity, with all its fears,With all the hopes of future years,Is hanging breathless on thy fate!We know what Master laid thy keel,What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,Who made each mast, and sail, and rope;What anvils rang, what hammers beat,In what a forge and what a heatWere forged the anchors of thy hope!Fear not each sudden sound and shock--’Tis of the wave, and not the rock;’Tis but the flapping of the sail,And not a rent made by the gale!In spite of rock, and tempest roar,In spite of false lights on the shore,Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,Our faith, triumphant o’er our fears,Are all with thee, are all with thee!
Words in this poem
- breathless a.
- Spent with labor or violent action; out of breath.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Ship of State is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Every Child Should Know The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library, Project Gutenberg ebook #16436; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mary E. Burt, The Ship of State, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/the-ship-of-state.html, id L25283.
Form and metre
The Ship of State is 22 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 55% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AABBACCDEEDFFGGHHIIBBI stateA · greatA · fearsB · yearsB · fateA · keelC · steelC · ropeD · beatE · heatE · hopeD · shockF · rockF · sailG · galeG · roarH · shoreH · seaI · theeI · tearsB · fearsB · theeI
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State! | 8 | ········ |
| Sail on, O Union, strong and great! | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Humanity, with all its fears, | 8 | ˘/˘˘···· |
| With all the hopes of future years, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Is hanging breathless on thy fate! | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| We know what Master laid thy keel, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Who made each mast, and sail, and rope; | 8 | ········ |
| What anvils rang, what hammers beat, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| In what a forge and what a heat | 8 | ········ |
| Were forged the anchors of thy hope! | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Fear not each sudden sound and shock-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| ’Tis of the wave, and not the rock; | 8 | ········ |
| ’Tis but the flapping of the sail, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And not a rent made by the gale! | 8 | ········ |
| In spite of rock, and tempest roar, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In spite of false lights on the shore, | 8 | ········ |
| Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! | 8 | ········ |
| Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee. | 8 | /·/····· |
| Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, | 8 | /·/·/·/· |
| Our faith, triumphant o’er our fears, | 8 | /·˘/˘·/· |
| Are all with thee, are all with thee! | 8 | ········ |
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.