Sunday, June 17, 2007

Beat-offbeat scansion of "The Pilot"

As an example, look at the following. You may wonder about my virtual offbeats, well I was trying to figure out the metrical pattern. This is a tetrameter poem, with a lot of feminine endings.

I typeset this with the HTML pre / pre tags. I hope all the lines are there, this web-based editor is a little jumpy. Note that the symbols come under the vowels.

Here is my beat-offbeat scansion of

The Pilot

From the Past and Unavailing
B o B o b o B o
After groping, after fearing,
B o B o B o B o
Into starlight we come trailing,
B o B o b O B o
And we find the stars are true.
b o B o B o B
Still, O comrade, what of you?
B o B o B o B
You are gone, but we are sailing,
B o B o B o B o
And the old ways are all new.
b o B[o] B -o- B
b o B o b O B

For the Lost and Unreturning
b o B o B o B o
We have drifted, we have waited;
B o B o B o B o
Uncommanded and unrated,
b o B o b o B o
We have tossed and wandered, yearning
b o B o B o B o
For a charm that comes no more
b o B o B o B [o]
From the old lights by the shore:
b o B * B -o- B [o]
b o b O b o B
We have shamed ourselves in learning
b o B o B o B o
What you knew so long before.
b o B o B o B

For the Breed of the Far-going
b o B -o- B * Bo
Who are strangers, and all brothers,
B o B o B o B o
May forget no more than others
B o B o B o B o
Who looked seaward with eyes flowing.
B o B o b o B o
But are brothers to bewail
B o B o b o B
One who fought so foul a gale?
B o B o B o B
You have won beyond our knowing,
B o B o B o B o
You are gone, but yet we sail.
B o B o B o B

--Edward Arlington Robinson.

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