Ebb Tide
When the long day goes byAnd I do not see your face,The old wild, restless sorrowSteals from its hiding place.
My day is barren and broken,Bereft of light and song,A sea beach bleak and windyThat moans the whole day long.
To the empty beach at ebb tide,Bare with its rocks and scars,Come back like the sea with singing,And light of a million stars.
About this text
Ebb Tide is in the public domain. This text is taken from Love Songs, Project Gutenberg ebook #442; 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, Ebb Tide, in Love Songs (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #442, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/teasdale-love-songs/ebb-tide.html, id L08076.
Form and metre
Ebb Tide is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.8 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in common measure.
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 by · faceA · sorrow · placeA
- 2 -A-A broken · songA · windy · longA
- 3 -A-A tide · scarsA · singing · starsA
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When the long day goes by | 6 | ······ |
| And I do not see your face, | 7 | ······· |
| The old wild, restless sorrow | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Steals from its hiding place. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| My day is barren and broken, | 8 | ···/˘·/˘ |
| Bereft of light and song, | 6 | ˘/···· |
| A sea beach bleak and windy | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| That moans the whole day long. | 6 | ······ |
| To the empty beach at ebb tide, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Bare with its rocks and scars, | 6 | ······ |
| Come back like the sea with singing, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And light of a million stars. | 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.