Nahant
Bowed as an elm under the weight of its beauty,So earth is bowed, under her weight of splendor,Molten sea, richness of leaves and the burnishedBronze of sea-grasses.
Clefts in the cliff shelter the purple sand-peasAnd chicory flowers bluer than the oceanFlinging its foam high, white fire in sunshine,Jewels of water.
Joyous thunder of blown waves on the ledges,Make me forget war and the dark war-sorrow--Against the sky a sentry paces the sea-cliffSlim in his khaki.
Words in this poem
- chicory n.
- A branching perennial plant (Cichorium Intybus) with bright blue flowers, growing wild in Europe, Asia, and America; also cultivated for its roots and as a salad plant; succory; wild endive. [F. chicorée, earlier also cichorée, L. cichorium, fr. Gr. , , Cf. Succory.]
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Nahant is in the public domain. This text is taken from Flame and Shadow, Project Gutenberg ebook #591; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sara Teasdale, Nahant, in Flame and Shadow (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #591, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-flame-shadow/nahant.html, id L17000.
Form and metre
Nahant is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.5 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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.
- 2 -AA- peas · oceanA · sunshineA · water
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Bowed as an elm under the weight of its beauty, | 12 | ··········/˘ |
| So earth is bowed, under her weight of splendor, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Molten sea, richness of leaves and the burnished | 11 | /˘·/˘····/˘ |
| Bronze of sea-grasses. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Clefts in the cliff shelter the purple sand-peas | 11 | ····/˘·/˘·· |
| And chicory flowers bluer than the ocean | 10 | ·/˘˘//˘··/ |
| Flinging its foam high, white fire in sunshine, | 10 | /˘····/·/· |
| Jewels of water. | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| Joyous thunder of blown waves on the ledges, | 11 | /˘/˘·····/˘ |
| Make me forget war and the dark war-sorrow-- | 11 | ··˘/·····/˘ |
| Against the sky a sentry paces the sea-cliff | 12 | ·····/˘/˘··· |
| Slim in his khaki. | 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.