Too Long, o Spirit of Storm
Too long, O Spirit of Storm,Thy lightning sleeps in its sheath!I am sick to the soul of yon pallid sky,And the moveless sea beneath.
Come down in thy strength on the deep!Worse dangers there are in life,When the waves are still, and the skies look fair,Than in their wildest strife.
A friend I knew, whose daysWere as calm as this sky overhead;But one blue morn that was fairest of all,The heart in his bosom fell dead.
And they thought him alive while he walkedThe streets that he walked in youth--Ah! little they guessed the seeming manWas a soulless corpse in sooth.
Come down in thy strength, O Storm!And lash the deep till it raves!I am sick to the soul of that quiet sea,Which hides ten thousand graves.
Words in this poem
- moveless a.
- Motionless; fixed.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
- soulless a.
- Being without a soul, or without greatness or nobleness of mind; mean; spiritless.
- corpse n.
- A human body in general, whether living or dead; -- sometimes contemptuosly. [OF. cors (sometimes written corps), F. corps, L. corpus; akin to AS. hrif womb. See Midriff, and cf. Corse, Corselet, Corps, Cuerpo.]
- sooth a.
- True; faithful; trustworthy. [OE. soth, AS. s, for san; akin to OS. s, OHG. sand, Icel. sannr, Sw. sann, Dan. sand, Skr. sat, sant, real, genuine, present, being; properly p. pr. from a root]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Too Long, o Spirit of Storm is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Henry Timrod; with Memoir, Project Gutenberg ebook #845; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Timrod, Too Long, o Spirit of Storm, in Poems (1860–1867), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #845, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/timrod-poems/too-long-o-spirit-of-storm.html, id L10452.
Form and metre
Too Long, o Spirit of Storm is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 78%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 15% 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.
- 1 -A-A storm · sheathA · sky · beneathA
- 2 -A-A deep · lifeA · fair · strifeA
- 3 -A-A days · overheadA · all · deadA
- 4 -A-A walked · youthA · man · soothA
- 5 -A-A storm · ravesA · sea · gravesA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Too long, O Spirit of Storm, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Thy lightning sleeps in its sheath! | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| I am sick to the soul of yon pallid sky, | 11 | ········/˘· |
| And the moveless sea beneath. | 8 | ········ |
| Come down in thy strength on the deep! | 8 | ········ |
| Worse dangers there are in life, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| When the waves are still, and the skies look fair, | 10 | ·········· |
| Than in their wildest strife. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| A friend I knew, whose days | 6 | ······ |
| Were as calm as this sky overhead; | 9 | ······/˘/ |
| But one blue morn that was fairest of all, | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| The heart in his bosom fell dead. | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| And they thought him alive while he walked | 10 | ····˘/···˘ |
| The streets that he walked in youth-- | 7 | ······· |
| Ah! little they guessed the seeming man | 10 | ·/˘··˘·/˘· |
| Was a soulless corpse in sooth. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Come down in thy strength, O Storm! | 7 | ······· |
| And lash the deep till it raves! | 7 | ······· |
| I am sick to the soul of that quiet sea, | 10 | ········/· |
| Which hides ten thousand graves. | 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.