Vanishings
As one whose eyes have watched the stricken daySwoon to its crimson death adown the sea,Turning his face to eastward suddenlySees a lack-lustre world all chill and gray,--Then, wandering sunless whitherso he may,Feels the first dubious dumb obscurity,And vague foregloomings of the Dark to be,Close like a sadness round his glimmering way;So I, from drifting dreambound on and onAbout strange isles of utter bliss, in seasWhose waves are unimagined melodies,Rose and beheld the dreamless world anew:Sad were the fields, and dim with splendours goneThe strait sky-glimpses fugitive and few.
Words in this poem
- stricken p. p.
- Struck; smitten; wounded; as, the stricken deer.
- adown adv.
- From a higher to a lower situation; downward; down, to or on the ground. [OE. adun, adoun, adune. AS. of dune off the hill. See Down.]
- sunless a.
- Destitute or deprived of the sun or its rays; shaded; shadowed.
- dubious a.
- Doubtful or not settled in opinion; being in doubt; wavering or fluctuating; undetermined. [L. dubius, dubiosus, fr. duo two. See Two, and cf. Doubt.]
- sadness n.
- Heaviness; firmness.
- dreamless a.
- Free from, or without, dreams. Camden.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Vanishings 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, Vanishings, in The Poems of William Watson (1892–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13179, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/watson-poems/vanishings.html, id L11372.
Form and metre
Vanishings is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 36% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AB-AA-BACDDECE dayA · seaB · suddenly · grayA · mayA · obscurity · beB · wayA · onC · seasD · melodiesD · anewE · goneC · fewE
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| As one whose eyes have watched the stricken day | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Swoon to its crimson death adown the sea, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Turning his face to eastward suddenly | 10 | /˘···/˘/˘˘ |
| Sees a lack-lustre world all chill and gray,-- | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Then, wandering sunless whitherso he may, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Feels the first dubious dumb obscurity, | 11 | ···/˘˘·˘/˘˘ |
| And vague foregloomings of the Dark to be, | 11 | ··········· |
| Close like a sadness round his glimmering way; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| So I, from drifting dreambound on and on | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| About strange isles of utter bliss, in seas | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Whose waves are unimagined melodies, | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘˘ |
| Rose and beheld the dreamless world anew: | 10 | ··˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| Sad were the fields, and dim with splendours gone | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| The strait sky-glimpses fugitive and few. | 10 | ···/˘/˘˘·· |
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.