Mannahatta
My city’s fit and noble name resumed,Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning,A rocky founded island--shores where ever gayly dash the coming,going, hurrying sea waves.
Words in this poem
- gayly adv.
- With mirth and frolic; merrily; blithely; gleefully.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mannahatta 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, Mannahatta, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/mannahatta-2.html, id L04072.
Form and metre
Mannahatta is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 12.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My city’s fit and noble name resumed, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning, | 15 | ··˘/˘˘·····/˘/˘ |
| A rocky founded island--shores where ever gayly dash the coming, | 17 | ·/˘/˘/˘··/˘/˘··/˘ |
| going, hurrying sea waves. | 7 | /˘/˘˘·· |
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.