"Upon the Mountain's Distant Head"
Upon the mountain's distant head,With trackless snows for ever white,Where all is still, and cold, and dead,Late shines the day's departing light.
But far below those icy rocks,The vales, in summer bloom arrayed,Woods full of birds, and fields of flocks,Are dim with mist and dark with shade.
'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts,And eyes where generous meanings burn,Earliest the light of life departs,But lingers with the cold and stern.
Words in this poem
- trackless a.
- Having no track; marked by no footsteps; untrodden; as, a trackless desert.
- generous a.
- Of honorable birth or origin; highborn. [F. généreux, fr. L. generous of noble birth, noble, excellent, magnanimous, fr. genus birth, race: cf. It. generoso. See 2d Gender.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
"Upon the Mountain's Distant Head" is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by William Cullen Bryant, Project Gutenberg ebook #16341; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Cullen Bryant, "Upon the Mountain's Distant Head", in Poems (1821–1876), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16341, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bryant-poems/upon-the-mountain-s-distant-head.html, id L07313.
Form and metre
"Upon the Mountain's Distant Head" is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABAB headA · whiteB · deadA · lightB
- 2 ABAB rocksA · arrayedB · flocksA · shadeB
- 3 ABAB heartsA · burnB · departsA · sternB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Upon the mountain's distant head, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| With trackless snows for ever white, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Where all is still, and cold, and dead, | 8 | ········ |
| Late shines the day's departing light. | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| But far below those icy rocks, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The vales, in summer bloom arrayed, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Woods full of birds, and fields of flocks, | 8 | ········ |
| Are dim with mist and dark with shade. | 8 | ········ |
| 'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And eyes where generous meanings burn, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Earliest the light of life departs, | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| But lingers with the cold and stern. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
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.