Man Overboard

Katharine Lee Bates 1859 (Falmouth) – 1929 (Wellesley)



YOUNG, the naked stoker who went
Mad with the fires and leapt to the sea,
Boyhood still in the voice that sent
One shrill cry back from eternity.
Perchance from the phosphorescent gleams
That shot through our wake of swirling foam,
On his delirious brain flashed dreams
Of a waiting mother, an English home.
The ocean clad him in cool, soft robe;
The ship fled on, as the guilty flee;
And the sun, a crimson-belted globe,
Slipped down to comfort him under the sea.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

25 sec read
94

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCDEBEB
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 461
Words 86
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 12

Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Lee Bates is remembered as the author of the words to the anthem America the Beautiful Bates was born in Falmouth Massachusetts and lived as an adult on Centre Street in Newton Massachusetts An historic plaque marks the site of her home The daughter of a Congregational pastor she graduated from Wellesley College in 1880 and for many years was a professor of English literature at Wellesley While teaching there she was elected a member of the newly formed Pi Gamma Mu honor society for the social sciences because of her interest in history and politics for which she also studied She lived at Wellesley with Katharine Coman who herself was a history and political economy teacher and founder of the Wellesley College Economics department The pair lived together for twenty-five years until Comans death in 1915 It is debated if this relationship was an intimate lesbian relationship as different sources maintain or a platonic relationship called sometimes Boston marriages as the local historical society of her birthplace maintain more…

All Katharine Lee Bates poems | Katharine Lee Bates Books

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    Poet George McDonald wrote a two-word poem that reads _____ _____?
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