Bare Boughs
O heart,--that beat the bird's blithe blood,The blithe bird's strain, and understoodThe song it sang to leaf and bud,--What dost thou in the wood?
O soul,--that kept the brook's glad flow,The glad brook's word to sun and moon,--What dost thou here where song lies low,And dead the dreams of June?
Where once was heard a voice of song,The hautboys of the mad winds sing;Where once a music flowed along,The rain's wild bugle's ring.
The weedy water frets and ails,And moans in many a sunless fall;And, o'er the melancholy, trailsThe black crow's eldritch call.
Unhappy brook! O withered wood!O days, whom Death makes comrades of!Where are the birds that thrilled the bloodWhen Life struck hands with Love?
A song, one soared against the blue;A song, one silvered in the leaves;A song, one blew where orchards grewGold-appled to the eaves.
The birds are flown; the flowers, dead;And sky and earth are bleak and gray:Where Joy once went, all light of tread,Grief haunts the leaf-wild way.
Words in this poem
- blithe a.
- Gay; merry; sprightly; joyous; glad; cheerful; as, a blithe spirit. [AS. bli blithe, kind; akin to Goth. blei kind, Icel. bli mild, gentle, Dan. & Sw. blid gentle, D. blijd blithe, OHG. blidi kind, blithe.]
- weedy a.
- Of or pertaining to weeds; consisting of weeds.
- sunless a.
- Destitute or deprived of the sun or its rays; shaded; shadowed.
- eldritch a.
- Hideous; ghastly; as, an eldritch shriek or laugh. [Local, Eng.]
- flown a.
- Flushed, inflated.
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Bare Boughs is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #7796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Madison Julius Cawein, Bare Boughs, in Poems (1911), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cawein-poems/bare-boughs.html, id L10915.
Form and metre
Bare Boughs is 28 lines in 7 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 14% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 bloodA · understoodB · budA · woodB
- 2 ABAB flowA · moonB · lowA · juneB
- 3 ABAB songA · singB · alongA · ringB
- 4 ABAB ailsA · fallB · trailsA · callB
- 5 ABAB woodA · ofB · bloodA · loveB
- 6 ABAB blueA · leavesB · grewA · eavesB
- 7 ABAB deadA · grayB · treadA · wayB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O heart,--that beat the bird's blithe blood, | 8 | ········ |
| The blithe bird's strain, and understood | 8 | ······˘/ |
| The song it sang to leaf and bud,-- | 8 | ········ |
| What dost thou in the wood? | 6 | ······ |
| O soul,--that kept the brook's glad flow, | 8 | ········ |
| The glad brook's word to sun and moon,-- | 8 | ········ |
| What dost thou here where song lies low, | 8 | ········ |
| And dead the dreams of June? | 6 | ······ |
| Where once was heard a voice of song, | 8 | ········ |
| The hautboys of the mad winds sing; | 8 | ········ |
| Where once a music flowed along, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| The rain's wild bugle's ring. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The weedy water frets and ails, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And moans in many a sunless fall; | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| And, o'er the melancholy, trails | 8 | ···/˘·˘· |
| The black crow's eldritch call. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Unhappy brook! O withered wood! | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| O days, whom Death makes comrades of! | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Where are the birds that thrilled the blood | 8 | ········ |
| When Life struck hands with Love? | 6 | ······ |
| A song, one soared against the blue; | 8 | ········ |
| A song, one silvered in the leaves; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A song, one blew where orchards grew | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Gold-appled to the eaves. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| The birds are flown; the flowers, dead; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And sky and earth are bleak and gray: | 8 | ········ |
| Where Joy once went, all light of tread, | 8 | ········ |
| Grief haunts the leaf-wild way. | 6 | ······ |
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.