Paumanok
Sea-beauty! stretch’d and basking!One side thy inland ocean laving, broad, with copious commerce,steamers, sails,And one the Atlantic’s wind caressing, fierce or gentle--mighty hullsdark-gliding in the distance.Isle of sweet brooks of drinking-water--healthy air and soil!Isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine!
Words in this poem
- isle v. t.
- To cause to become an island, or like an island; to surround or encompass; to island.
- salty a.
- Somewhat salt; saltish.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Paumanok 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, Paumanok, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/paumanok.html, id L04073.
Form and metre
Paumanok is 7 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The lines average 10.6 syllables. 3 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sea-beauty! stretch’d and basking! | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| One side thy inland ocean laving, broad, with copious commerce, | 16 | ···/·/˘····/˘˘/˘ |
| steamers, sails, | 3 | /˘· |
| And one the Atlantic’s wind caressing, fierce or gentle--mighty hulls | 17 | ···˘/˘·˘/˘··/˘/˘· |
| dark-gliding in the distance. | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| Isle of sweet brooks of drinking-water--healthy air and soil! | 14 | ·····/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine! | 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.