Other Books, By, Ella Wheeler Wilcox
WHEELER WILCOX A Birthday Book
Oh, you who read some song that I have sung,What know you of the soul from whence it sprung?
Dost dream the poet ever speaks aloudHis secret thought unto the listening crowd?
Go take the murmuring sea-shell from the shore:You have its shape, its color and no more.
It tells not one of those vast mysteriesThat lie beneath the surface of the seas.
Our songs are shells, cast out by-waves of thought;Here, take them at your pleasure; but think not
You've seen beneath the surface of the waves,Where lie our shipwrecks and our coral caves.
Words in this poem
- wheeler n.
- One who wheels, or turns.
- aloud adv.
- With a loud voice, or great noise; loudly; audibly. [Pref. a- + loud.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Other Books, By, Ella Wheeler Wilcox is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Passion, Project Gutenberg ebook #16776; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Other Books, By, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, in Poems of Passion (1883), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16776, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wilcox-passion/other-books-by-ella-wheeler-wilcox.html, id L22135.
Form and metre
Other Books, By, Ella Wheeler Wilcox is 13 lines in 7 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 77% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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.
- 2 AA sungA · sprungA
- 3 AA aloudA · crowdA
- 4 AA shoreA · moreA
- 5 AA mysteriesA · seasA
- 7 AA wavesA · cavesA
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| WHEELER WILCOX A Birthday Book | 8 | /˘/˘·/·· |
| Oh, you who read some song that I have sung, | 10 | ·········· |
| What know you of the soul from whence it sprung? | 10 | ·········· |
| Dost dream the poet ever speaks aloud | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| His secret thought unto the listening crowd? | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Go take the murmuring sea-shell from the shore: | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| You have its shape, its color and no more. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| It tells not one of those vast mysteries | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| That lie beneath the surface of the seas. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Our songs are shells, cast out by-waves of thought; | 10 | /········· |
| Here, take them at your pleasure; but think not | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| You've seen beneath the surface of the waves, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Where lie our shipwrecks and our coral caves. | 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.