Voices in the Wind
We have worn the blue and vair,And all the sea-cavesKnow us of old, and know our new-found mate.There's many a secret stairThe sea-folk climb....
Words in this poem
- folk n.
- In Anglo-Saxon times, the people of a group of townships or villages; a community; a tribe. [AS. folc; akin to D. volk, OS. & OHG. folk, G. volk, Icel. f, Sw. & Dan. folk, Lith. pulkas crowd, and perh. to E. follow.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Voices in the Wind is in the public domain. This text is taken from Personae, Project Gutenberg ebook #41162; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ezra Pound, Voices in the Wind, in Personae (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #41162, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pound-personae/voices-in-the-wind.html, id L01215.
Form and metre
Voices in the Wind is 5 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 6.6 syllables.
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--A- vairA · caves · mate · stairA · climb
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| We have worn the blue and vair, | 7 | ······· |
| And all the sea-caves | 5 | ····· |
| Know us of old, and know our new-found mate. | 10 | ······/··· |
| There's many a secret stair | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| The sea-folk climb.... | 4 | ···· |
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.