Far Away
By what pale light or moon-pale shoreDrifts my soul in lonely flight?Regions God had floated o’erEre He touched the world with light?
Not in Heaven and not in earthIs this water, is this moon;For there is no starry birth,And no dawning and no noon.
Far away—O far away,Mist-born—dewy vapours riseFrom the dim gates of the dayFar below in earthly skies.
Words in this poem
- starry a.
- Abounding with stars; adorned with stars.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Far Away is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Isaac Rosenberg, Project Gutenberg ebook #66889; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Isaac Rosenberg, Far Away, in Poems (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66889, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rosenberg-poems/far-away.html, id L02513.
Form and metre
Far Away is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 42% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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-A shore · flightA · o'er · lightA
- 2 ABAB earthA · moonB · birthA · noonB
- 3 ABAB awayA · riseB · dayA · skiesB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| By what pale light or moon-pale shore | 8 | ········ |
| Drifts my soul in lonely flight? | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Regions God had floated o’er | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Ere He touched the world with light? | 7 | ······· |
| Not in Heaven and not in earth | 7 | ··/···· |
| Is this water, is this moon; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| For there is no starry birth, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And no dawning and no noon. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Far away—O far away, | 7 | ·˘/··˘/ |
| Mist-born—dewy vapours rise | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| From the dim gates of the day | 7 | ······· |
| Far below in earthly skies. | 7 | ····/˘· |
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.