I Wonder What It Feels Like to be Drowned?

Robert Graves 1895 (Wimbledon) – 1985 (Deià)



Look at my knees,
That island rising from the steamy seas!
The candles a tall lightship; my two hands
Are boats and barges anchored to the sands,
With mighty cliffs all round;
They’re full of wine and riches from far lands….
I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?

I can make caves,
By lifting up the island and huge waves
And storms, and then with head and ears well under
Blow bubbles with a monstrous roar like thunder,
A bull-of-Bashan sound.
The seas run high and the boats split asunder….
I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?

The thin soap slips
And slithers like a shark under the ships.
My toes are on the soap-dish—that’s the effect
Of my huge storms; an iron steamer’s wrecked.
The soap slides round and round;
He’s biting the old sailors, I expect….
I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 06, 2023

45 sec read
136

Quick analysis:

Scheme aabbcbC ddeeceC ffggcgC
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 830
Words 153
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 7, 7, 7

Robert Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, scholar/translator/writer of antiquity specializing in Classical Greece and Rome, novelist and soldier in World War One. more…

All Robert Graves poems | Robert Graves Books

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