Sea and Shore
Music, I yield to theeAs swimmer to the sea,I give my spirit to the flood of song!Bear me upon thy breastIn rapture and at rest,Bathe me in pure delight and make me strong;From strife and struggle bring release,And draw the waves of passion into tides of peace.
Remembered songs most dearIn living songs I hear,While blending voices gently swing and sway,In melodies of love,Whose mighty currents moveWith singing near and singing far away;Sweet in the glow of morning light,And sweeter still across the starlit gulf of night.
Music, in thee we float,And lose the lonely noteOf self in thy celestial-ordered strain,Until at last we findThe life to love resignedIn harmony of joy restored again;And songs that cheered our mortal daysBreak on the shore of light in endless hymns of praise.
Words in this poem
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- blending n.
- The act of mingling.
- starlit a.
- Lighted by the stars; starlight.
- resigned a.
- Submissive; yielding; not disposed to resist or murmur.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sea and Shore 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, Sea and Shore, in The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1925), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16229, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/van-dyke-poems/sea-and-shore.html, id L22978.
Form and metre
Sea and Shore is 24 lines in 3 stanzas of 8 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABCCBDD. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
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 AABCCBDD theeA · seaA · songB · breastC · restC · strongB · releaseD · peaceD
- 2 AABCCBDD dearA · hearA · swayB · loveC · moveC · awayB · lightD · nightD
- 3 AABCCBDD floatA · noteA · strainB · findC · resignedC · againB · daysD · praiseD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Music, I yield to thee | 6 | /˘···· |
| As swimmer to the sea, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| I give my spirit to the flood of song! | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Bear me upon thy breast | 6 | ······ |
| In rapture and at rest, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Bathe me in pure delight and make me strong; | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| From strife and struggle bring release, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| And draw the waves of passion into tides of peace. | 12 | ·····/˘····· |
| Remembered songs most dear | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| In living songs I hear, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| While blending voices gently swing and sway, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| In melodies of love, | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| Whose mighty currents move | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| With singing near and singing far away; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| Sweet in the glow of morning light, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And sweeter still across the starlit gulf of night. | 12 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘··· |
| Music, in thee we float, | 6 | /˘···· |
| And lose the lonely note | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Of self in thy celestial-ordered strain, | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘· |
| Until at last we find | 6 | ······ |
| The life to love resigned | 6 | ····˘/ |
| In harmony of joy restored again; | 10 | ·/˘˘··˘/˘/ |
| And songs that cheered our mortal days | 9 | ····/˘/˘· |
| Break on the shore of light in endless hymns of praise. | 12 | ·······/˘··· |
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.