Young Sea
The sea is never still.It pounds on the shoreRestless as a young heart,Hunting.
The sea speaksAnd only the stormy heartsKnow what it says:It is the faceof a rough mother speaking.
The sea is young.One storm cleans all the hoarAnd loosens the age of it.I hear it laughing, reckless.
They love the sea,Men who ride on itAnd know they will dieUnder the salt of it
Let only the young come,Says the sea.Let them kiss my faceAnd hear me.I am the last wordAnd I tellWhere storms and stars come from.
Words in this poem
- hoar v. t.
- To become moldy or musty. [AS. harian to grow gray.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Young Sea is in the public domain. This text is taken from Chicago Poems, Wikisource; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Carl Sandburg, Young Sea, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/young-sea.html, id L28959.
Form and metre
Young Sea is 24 lines in 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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.
- 4 ABAB seaA · itB · dieA · itB
- 5 AB-B--A comeA · seaB · face · meB · word · tell · fromA
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 sea is never still. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| It pounds on the shore | 5 | ····· |
| Restless as a young heart, | 6 | /˘···· |
| Hunting. | 2 | /˘ |
| The sea speaks | 3 | ··· |
| And only the stormy hearts | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| Know what it says: | 4 | ···· |
| It is the face | 4 | ···· |
| of a rough mother speaking. | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| The sea is young. | 4 | ···· |
| One storm cleans all the hoar | 6 | ······ |
| And loosens the age of it. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| I hear it laughing, reckless. | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| They love the sea, | 4 | ···· |
| Men who ride on it | 5 | ····· |
| And know they will die | 5 | ····· |
| Under the salt of it | 6 | ······ |
| Let only the young come, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Says the sea. | 3 | ··· |
| Let them kiss my face | 5 | ····· |
| And hear me. | 3 | ··· |
| I am the last word | 5 | ····· |
| And I tell | 3 | ··· |
| Where storms and stars come from. | 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.