For the Bookman
Not Dante when he wandered by the river Arno,Not Burns who plowed the banks and braes of bonnie Ayr,Not even Shakspere on the shores of Avon,--ah, no!Not one of those great bards did taste true Poet's Fare.
But Whitman, loafing in Long Island and New Jersey,Found there the sustenance of mighty ode and psalm,And while his rude emotions swam around in verse, heFed chiefly on the wild, impassioned, sea-born clam.
Thus in his work we feel the waves' bewildering motion,And winds from mighty mud-flats, weird and wild:His clam-filled bosom answered to the voice of ocean,And rose and fell responsively with every tide.
Words in this poem
- impassioned p. p.
- Actuated or characterized by passion or zeal; showing warmth of feeling; ardent; animated; excited; as, an impassioned orator or discourse.
- bewildering a.
- Causing bewilderment or great perplexity; as, bewildering difficulties.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
For the Bookman is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Henry Van Dyke, Project Gutenberg ebook #16229; 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 Van Dyke, For the Bookman, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/for-the-bookman.html, id L22993.
Form and metre
For the Bookman is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is alexandrines, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in alexandrines.
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.
- 3 A-A- motionA · wild · oceanA · tide
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 alexandrines. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Not Dante when he wandered by the river Arno, | 13 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Not Burns who plowed the banks and braes of bonnie Ayr, | 13 | ····˘·····/˘· |
| Not even Shakspere on the shores of Avon,--ah, no! | 13 | ·/˘······/˘·· |
| Not one of those great bards did taste true Poet's Fare. | 12 | ·········/˘· |
| But Whitman, loafing in Long Island and New Jersey, | 13 | ·/˘/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| Found there the sustenance of mighty ode and psalm, | 12 | ···/˘˘·/˘··· |
| And while his rude emotions swam around in verse, he | 13 | ····˘/˘······ |
| Fed chiefly on the wild, impassioned, sea-born clam. | 13 | ·/˘···˘/˘˘··· |
| Thus in his work we feel the waves' bewildering motion, | 14 | ········˘/˘˘/˘ |
| And winds from mighty mud-flats, weird and wild: | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| His clam-filled bosom answered to the voice of ocean, | 13 | ···/˘/˘····/˘ |
| And rose and fell responsively with every tide. | 13 | ··········/˘· |
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.