August
BA. A reaper with dusty shoon and hat of strawOn the yellow field, his scythe in his armës braw:Beneath the tall grey trees resting at noonFrom sweat and swink with scythe and dusty shoon.
Words in this poem
- braw a.
- Well-dressed; handsome; smart; brave; -- used of persons or their clothing, etc.; as, a braw lad.
- swink v. i.
- To labor; to toil; to salve. [AS. swincan, akin to swingan. See Swing.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
August is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas, Project Gutenberg ebook #37804; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Bridges, August, in Poetical Works (1873–1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37804, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bridges-shorter-poems/august-2.html, id L01795.
Form and metre
August is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.8 syllables.
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.
- 1 AABB strawA · brawA · noonB · shoonB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| BA. A reaper with dusty shoon and hat of straw | 12 | ··/˘·/˘····· |
| On the yellow field, his scythe in his armës braw: | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| Beneath the tall grey trees resting at noon | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| From sweat and swink with scythe and dusty shoon. | 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.