At Flood
ALL winter long it ebbed and ebbed, and left the cold earth bare.No pulse of growth the bare boughs stirred, no hope the frozen air;No twitters cheered the snow-heaped nests, no songs the vine and trees,As outward, outward swept the tide, and left the world to freeze.
Then came a subtle change,—a time when for a moment’s spaceLife seemed to stay its flying feet and cease its outward race,And, poised as waves poise, turn its face toward the deserted shore,And with a pitying rush come back to visit it once more.
We saw the freshening forces rise in every yellowing stem,In budding oak and tasselled larch and scarlet maple gem.Inch after inch, wave following wave, it rose on every side;And now the tide is at its flood, the blessed summer-tide.
For every ebb there comes a flow; brave hearts can smile at both.The waters come, the waters go; we watch them, nothing loath.Led by a hand invisible, their bright waves seem to sing,“The Lord who rules the winter is the Lord who sends the spring!”
Words in this poem
- pitying a.
- Expressing pity; as, a pitying eye, glance, or word.
- yellowing n.
- The act or process of making yellow.
- loath a.
- Hateful; odious; disliked. [OE. looth, loth, AS. la hostile, odious; akin to OS. l, G. leid, Icel. lei, Sw. led, G. leiden to suffer, OHG. lidan to suffer, go, cf. AS. li to go, Goth. leip]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
At Flood is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Few More Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #49518; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Susan Coolidge, At Flood, in A Few More Verses (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49518, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coolidge-few-more-verses/at-flood.html, id L23492.
Form and metre
At Flood is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic heptameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
See other poems in iambic heptameter.
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 bareA · airA · treesB · freezeB
- 2 AABB spaceA · raceA · shoreB · moreB
- 3 AABB stemA · gemA · sideB · tideB
- 4 AABB bothA · loathA · singB · springB
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 heptameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| ALL winter long it ebbed and ebbed, and left the cold earth bare. | 16 | ·/˘··/˘·/˘······ |
| No pulse of growth the bare boughs stirred, no hope the frozen air; | 14 | ···········/˘· |
| No twitters cheered the snow-heaped nests, no songs the vine and trees, | 14 | ·············· |
| As outward, outward swept the tide, and left the world to freeze. | 14 | ·/˘/˘········· |
| Then came a subtle change,—a time when for a moment’s space | 14 | ···/˘······/˘· |
| Life seemed to stay its flying feet and cease its outward race, | 14 | ·····/˘····/˘· |
| And, poised as waves poise, turn its face toward the deserted shore, | 15 | ···········˘/˘· |
| And with a pitying rush come back to visit it once more. | 14 | ···/˘····/˘··· |
| We saw the freshening forces rise in every yellowing stem, | 14 | ···/˘/˘··/˘/˘· |
| In budding oak and tasselled larch and scarlet maple gem. | 14 | ·/˘··/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Inch after inch, wave following wave, it rose on every side; | 14 | ·····/˘····/˘· |
| And now the tide is at its flood, the blessed summer-tide. | 14 | ··········˘/˘· |
| For every ebb there comes a flow; brave hearts can smile at both. | 14 | ·/˘··········· |
| The waters come, the waters go; we watch them, nothing loath. | 14 | ·/˘··/˘····/˘· |
| Led by a hand invisible, their bright waves seem to sing, | 14 | ····˘/˘˘······ |
| “The Lord who rules the winter is the Lord who sends the spring!” | 14 | ·····/˘······· |
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.