October
BA. On frosty morns with the woods aflame, down, downThe golden spoils fall thick from the chestnut crown.May Autumn in tranquil glory her riches spend,With mellow apples her orchard-branches bend.
Words in this poem
- aflame adv.
- Inflames; glowing with light or passion; ablaze. G. Eliot. [Pref. a- + flame.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
October 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, October, in The Growth of Love, and Other Poems (1873–1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37804, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bridges-shorter-poems/october-2.html, id L01797.
Form and metre
October 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. 54% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.5 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 downA · crownA · spendB · bendB
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. On frosty morns with the woods aflame, down, down | 12 | ··/˘····˘/·· |
| The golden spoils fall thick from the chestnut crown. | 11 | ·/˘·····/·· |
| May Autumn in tranquil glory her riches spend, | 12 | ·/˘·/˘/˘·/˘· |
| With mellow apples her orchard-branches bend. | 11 | ·/˘/˘·/˘/˘· |
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.