The Ship
There was no song nor shout of joyNor beam of moon or sun,When she came back from the voyageLong ago begun;But twilight on the watersWas quiet and grey,And she glided steady, steady and pensive,Over the open bay.
Her sails were brown and ragged,And her crew hollow-eyed,But their silent lips spoke contentAnd their shoulders pride;Though she had no captives on her deck,And in her holdThere were no heaps of corn or timberOr silks or gold.
Words in this poem
- spoke n.
- The radius or ray of a wheel; one of the small bars which are inserted in the hub, or nave, and which serve to support the rim or felly. [OE. spoke, spake, AS, spaca; akin to D. speek, LG. speke, OHG. speihha, G. speiche. sq. root170. Cf. Spike a nail.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Ship is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems - First Series, Project Gutenberg ebook #37860; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Collings Squire, The Ship, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/the-ship.html, id L23177.
Form and metre
The Ship is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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.
- 1 -A-A-B-B joy · sunA · voyage · begunA · waters · greyB · pensive · bayB
- 2 AA-A-B-B raggedA · eyedA · content · prideA · deck · holdB · timber · goldB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There was no song nor shout of joy | 8 | ········ |
| Nor beam of moon or sun, | 6 | ······ |
| When she came back from the voyage | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Long ago begun; | 5 | ·˘/˘/ |
| But twilight on the waters | 7 | ·/···/˘ |
| Was quiet and grey, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| And she glided steady, steady and pensive, | 11 | ··/˘/˘/˘·/˘ |
| Over the open bay. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Her sails were brown and ragged, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And her crew hollow-eyed, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| But their silent lips spoke content | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| And their shoulders pride; | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Though she had no captives on her deck, | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| And in her hold | 4 | ···· |
| There were no heaps of corn or timber | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Or silks or gold. | 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.