Kyrenaikos
Lay me where soft Cyrene rambles downIn grove and garden to the sapphire sea;Twine yellow roses for the drinker's crown;Let music reach and fair heads circle me,Watching blue ocean where the white sails steerFruit-laden forth or with the wares and newsOf merchant cities seek our harbors here,Careless how Corinth fares, how Syracuse;But here, with love and sleep in her caress,Warm night shall sink and utterly persuadeThe gentle doctrine Aristippus bare, --Night-winds, and one whose white youth's loveliness,In a flowered balcony beside me laid,Dreams, with the starlight on her fragrant hair.
Words in this poem
- syracuse n.
- A red wine of Italy.
- caress n.
- An act of endearment; any act or expression of affection; an embracing, or touching, with tenderness. [F. caresse, It. carezza, LL. caritia dearness, fr. L. carus dear. See Charity.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- loveliness n.
- The state or quality of being lovely. [From Lovely.]
- starlight n.
- The light given by the stars.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Kyrenaikos is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #617; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alan Seeger, Kyrenaikos, in Poems (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #617, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/seeger-poems/kyrenaikos.html, id L12950.
Form and metre
Kyrenaikos is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDEFGEFG. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 87% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABABCDCDEFGEFG downA · seaB · crownA · meB · steerC · newsD · hereC · syracuseD · caressE · persuadeF · bareG · lovelinessE · laidF · hairG
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Lay me where soft Cyrene rambles down | 9 | ······/˘· |
| In grove and garden to the sapphire sea; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Twine yellow roses for the drinker's crown; | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Let music reach and fair heads circle me, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Watching blue ocean where the white sails steer | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Fruit-laden forth or with the wares and news | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Of merchant cities seek our harbors here, | 10 | ·/˘/˘·//˘· |
| Careless how Corinth fares, how Syracuse; | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| But here, with love and sleep in her caress, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Warm night shall sink and utterly persuade | 10 | ·····/˘˘˘/ |
| The gentle doctrine Aristippus bare, -- | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Night-winds, and one whose white youth's loveliness, | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| In a flowered balcony beside me laid, | 10 | ··//˘˘˘/·· |
| Dreams, with the starlight on her fragrant hair. | 10 | ···/···/˘· |
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.