City of Ships
City of ships!(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!O the beautiful sharp-bow’d steam-ships and sail-ships!)City of the world! (for all races are here,All the lands of the earth make contributions here;)City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in andout with eddies and foam!City of wharves and stores--city of tall facades of marble and iron!Proud and passionate city--mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!Spring up O city--not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike!Fear not--submit to no models but your own O city!Behold me--incarnate me as I have incarnated you!I have rejected nothing you offer’d me--whom you adopted I have adopted,Good or bad I never question you--I love all--I do not condemn any thing,I chant and celebrate all that is yours--yet peace no more,In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine,War, red war is my song through your streets, O city!
Words in this poem
- gleeful a.
- Merry; gay; joyous.
- mettlesome a.
- Full of spirit; possessing constitutional ardor; fiery; as, a mettlesome horse.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
City of Ships 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, City of Ships, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/city-of-ships.html, id L03943.
Form and metre
City of Ships is 18 lines in a single stanza. 78% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.9 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 6% 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 AAABB----C-C-----C shipsA · shipsA · shipsA · hereB · hereB · tides · and · foam · iron · cityC · warlike · cityC · you · adopted · thing · more · mine · cityC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| City of ships! | 4 | /˘·· |
| (O the black ships! O the fierce ships! | 8 | ········ |
| O the beautiful sharp-bow’d steam-ships and sail-ships!) | 12 | ··/˘˘······· |
| City of the world! (for all races are here, | 11 | /˘·····/˘·· |
| All the lands of the earth make contributions here;) | 12 | ········˘/˘· |
| City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides! | 15 | /˘···/˘·/˘·/˘˘· |
| City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and | 19 | /˘·/˘·˘/˘˘˘··˘//˘·· |
| out with eddies and foam! | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| City of wharves and stores--city of tall facades of marble and iron! | 18 | /˘····/˘··˘/·/˘·/˘ |
| Proud and passionate city--mettlesome, mad, extravagant city! | 17 | ··/˘˘/˘/˘˘·˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Spring up O city--not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike! | 18 | ···/˘···˘/··˘/˘//· |
| Fear not--submit to no models but your own O city! | 14 | ··˘/··/˘····/˘ |
| Behold me--incarnate me as I have incarnated you! | 15 | ˘/·˘/˘····˘/˘˘· |
| I have rejected nothing you offer’d me--whom you adopted I have adopted, | 21 | ··˘/˘/˘·/˘···˘/˘··˘/˘ |
| Good or bad I never question you--I love all--I do not condemn any thing, | 20 | ····/˘/˘·······˘//˘· |
| I chant and celebrate all that is yours--yet peace no more, | 14 | ···/˘········· |
| In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine, | 14 | ···/˘········· |
| War, red war is my song through your streets, O city! | 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.