The River I
As drones a bee with sultry humWhen all the world with heat lies dumb,Thou dronest through the drowsèd lea,To lose thyself and find the sea.
As fares the soul that threads the gloomToward an unseen goal of doom,Thou farest forth all witlessly,To lose thyself and find the sea.
Words in this poem
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The River I is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of William Watson, Project Gutenberg ebook #13179; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Watson, The River I, in The Poems of William Watson (1892–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13179, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/watson-poems/the-river-i.html, id L11362.
Form and metre
The River I is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.9 syllables. 25% 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 AABB humA · dumbA · leaB · seaB
- 2 AA-- gloomA · doomA · witlessly · sea
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 |
|---|---|---|
| As drones a bee with sultry hum | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| When all the world with heat lies dumb, | 8 | ········ |
| Thou dronest through the drowsèd lea, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| To lose thyself and find the sea. | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| As fares the soul that threads the gloom | 8 | ········ |
| Toward an unseen goal of doom, | 8 | ···˘/··· |
| Thou farest forth all witlessly, | 8 | ········ |
| To lose thyself and find the sea. | 8 | ··˘/···· |
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.