A Paumanok Picture
Two boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still,Ten fishermen waiting--they discover a thick school of mossbonkers--they drop the join’d seine-ends in the water,The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to thebeach, enclosing the mossbonkers,The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others standankle-deep in the water, pois’d on strong legs,The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them,Strew’d on the sand in heaps and windrows, well out from the water,the green-back’d spotted mossbonkers.
Words in this poem
- discover v. i.
- To discover or show one's self.
- rounding a.
- Round or nearly round; becoming round; roundish.
- slapping a.
- Very large; monstrous; big.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Paumanok Picture 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 Paumanok Picture, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/a-paumanok-picture.html, id L04039.
Form and metre
A Paumanok Picture is 11 lines in a single stanza. 73% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.7 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 27% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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-A----BA still · mossbonkersA · waterB · the · mossbonkersA · ashore · stand · legs · them · waterB · mossbonkersA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Two boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still, | 12 | ····/˘······ |
| Ten fishermen waiting--they discover a thick school of mossbonkers | 17 | ·/˘˘/˘·˘/˘······· |
| --they drop the join’d seine-ends in the water, | 11 | ····/˘···/˘ |
| The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the | 16 | ··/˘·······/˘··· |
| beach, enclosing the mossbonkers, | 8 | ·˘/˘···· |
| The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore, | 15 | ·······/˘····˘/ |
| Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others stand | 13 | ···/˘˘····/˘· |
| ankle-deep in the water, pois’d on strong legs, | 11 | /˘···/˘···· |
| The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them, | 14 | ··/˘···/˘/˘··· |
| Strew’d on the sand in heaps and windrows, well out from the water, | 15 | ·············/˘ |
| the green-back’d spotted mossbonkers. | 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.