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Robert Louis StevensonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The structure of “At the Sea-Side” consists of a single stanza of six lines. The rhyme scheme of this single stanza features two rhyming couplets in a somewhat regular rhyme scheme: aabccb. A closer look at the meter reveals a somewhat regular yet likewise imperfect pattern. The first two lines of the poem are written in iambic tetrameter. An iamb is a metrical foot, or unit, of poetry consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. With a line written in iambic tetrameter, this means that there are four of these unstressed/stressed units: “When I was down beside the sea / A wooden spade they gave to me” (Lines 1-2).
The third line of the stanza, however, is written in iambic trimeter, meaning there are three of these unstressed/stressed units. Line 3 reads: “To dig the sandy shore.” The next three lines of the stanza, Lines 4-6, follow this same metrical pattern. Lines 4 and 5 are written in iambic tetrameter and Line 6 is written in iambic trimeter. Both the third and the sixth lines—the lines written in iambic trimeter—rhyme with one another, separating the rhyming couplets that comprise the other lines.
By Robert Louis Stevenson