To the Man-of-War-Bird
Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm,Waking renew’d on thy prodigious pinions,(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended’st,And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating,As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee,(Myself a speck, a point on the world’s floating vast.)
Far, far at sea,After the night’s fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks,With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene,The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun,The limpid spread of air cerulean,Thou also re-appearest.
Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,)To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,Thou ship of air that never furl’st thy sails,Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating,At dusk that lookist on Senegal, at morn America,That sport’st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud,In them, in thy experiences, had’st thou my soul,What joys! what joys were thine!
Words in this poem
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- prodigious a.
- Of the nature of a prodigy; marvelous; wonderful; portentous. [L. prodigiosus, fr. prodigium a prodigy; cf. F. prodigieux. See Prodigy.]
- cerulean a.
- Sky-colored; blue; azure. [L. caeruleus.]
- senegal n.
- Gum senegal. See under Gum.
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To the Man-of-War-Bird 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, To the Man-of-War-Bird, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/to-the-man-of-war-bird.html, id L03914.
Form and metre
To the Man-of-War-Bird is 21 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.1 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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 ---A-A- storm · pinions · ascended'st · theeA · floating · theeA · vast
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm, | 10 | ·········· |
| Waking renew’d on thy prodigious pinions, | 11 | /˘˘/··˘/˘/˘ |
| (Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended’st, | 11 | ··········· |
| And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,) | 12 | ·/˘······/˘· |
| Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee, | 13 | ····˘/˘······ |
| (Myself a speck, a point on the world’s floating vast.) | 12 | ·/·······/˘· |
| Far, far at sea, | 4 | ···· |
| After the night’s fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks, | 12 | ············ |
| With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene, | 14 | ··˘/˘····/˘·˘/ |
| The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun, | 12 | ·/˘·˘/˘··/˘· |
| The limpid spread of air cerulean, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘˘ |
| Thou also re-appearest. | 7 | ·/˘·˘/˘ |
| Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) | 10 | ·········· |
| To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane, | 13 | ···/˘·····/˘· |
| Thou ship of air that never furl’st thy sails, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating, | 16 | ·/˘····/˘·/˘·/·˘ |
| At dusk that lookist on Senegal, at morn America, | 15 | ·······˘/··˘/˘˘ |
| That sport’st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, | 12 | ··˘/·/˘··/˘· |
| In them, in thy experiences, had’st thou my soul, | 13 | ····˘/˘˘˘···· |
| What joys! what joys were thine! | 6 | ······ |
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.