A Font of Type
This latent mine--these unlaunch’d voices--passionate powers,Wrath, argument, or praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout,(Not nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long primer merely,)These ocean waves arousable to fury and to death,Or sooth’d to ease and sheeny sun and sleep,Within the pallid slivers slumbering.
Words in this poem
- nonpareil n.
- Something of unequaled excellence; a peerless thing or person; a nonesuch; -- often used as a name. [See Nonpareil, a.]
- brevier n.
- A size of type between bourgeous and minion. [Prob. from being originally used in printing a breviary. See Breviary.]
- bourgeois n.
- A size of type between long primer and brevier. See Type. [From a French type founder named Bourgeois, or fr. F. bourgeois of the middle class; hence applied to an intermediate size of type between brevier and long prim]
- sheeny a.
- Bright; shining; radiant; sheen.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Font of Type is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, A Font of Type, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/a-font-of-type.html, id L04077.
Form and metre
A Font of Type is 6 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.5 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic heptameter.
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.
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 heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| This latent mine--these unlaunch’d voices--passionate powers, | 14 | ·/˘····/˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Wrath, argument, or praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout, | 14 | ·/˘˘···/˘···˘/ |
| (Not nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long primer merely,) | 13 | ····˘/˘/·/˘/˘ |
| These ocean waves arousable to fury and to death, | 14 | ·/˘······/˘··· |
| Or sooth’d to ease and sheeny sun and sleep, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Within the pallid slivers slumbering. | 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.