Third Voice
Blown far from harbors once in sight,May we not, going far, go right,--We, the Wise Brothers?Companioned by the whirling spheres,Have we no more than what appears--We, and all others?
About this text
Third Voice is in the public domain. This text is taken from The town down the river, Project Gutenberg ebook #76699; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Arlington Robinson, Third Voice, in The Town Down the River (1910), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #76699, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/robinson-town-down-river/third-voice.html, id L17201.
Form and metre
Third Voice is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes AABCCB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 AABCCB sightA · rightA · brothersB · spheresC · appearsC · othersB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Blown far from harbors once in sight, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| May we not, going far, go right,-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| We, the Wise Brothers? | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Companioned by the whirling spheres, | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| Have we no more than what appears-- | 8 | ······˘/ |
| We, and all others? | 5 | ···/˘ |
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.