There Blooms No Bud in May
There blooms no bud in MayCan for its white compareWith snow at break of day,On fields forlorn and bare.
For shadow it hath rose,Azure, and amethyst;And every air that blowsDies out in beauteous mist.
It hangs the frozen boughWith flowers on which the nightWheeling her darkness throughScatters a starry light.
Fearful of its pale glareIn flocks the starlings rise;Slide through the frosty air,And perch with plaintive cries.
Only the inky rook,Hunched cold in ruffled wings,Its snowy nest forsook,Caws of unnumbered Springs.
Words in this poem
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
- amethyst
- A variety of crystallized quartz, of a purple or bluish violet color, of different shades. It is much used as a jeweler's stone. [F. ametiste, amatiste, F. améthyste, L. amethystus, fr. Gr. Mead.]
- beauteous a.
- Full of beauty; beautiful; very handsome. [Mostly poetic] -- Beau"te*ous*ly, adv. --
- wheeling n.
- The act of conveying anything, or traveling, on wheels, or in a wheeled vehicle.
- starry a.
- Abounding with stars; adorned with stars.
- glare v. i.
- To shine with a bright, dazzling light. [OE. glaren, gloren; cf. AS. glær amber, LG. glaren to glow or burn like coals, D. gloren to glimmer; prob. akin to E. glass.]
- rook n.
- Mist; fog. See Roke.
- snowy a.
- White like snow.
- unnumbered a.
- Not numbered; not counted or estimated; innumerable.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
There Blooms No Bud in May is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Listeners and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #22569; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walter de la Mare, There Blooms No Bud in May, in The Listeners and Other Poems (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22569, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/de-la-mare-listeners/there-blooms-no-bud-in-may.html, id L17078.
Form and metre
There Blooms No Bud in May is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 4 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 35% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 mayA · compareB · dayA · bareB
- 2 ABAB roseA · amethystB · blowsA · mistB
- 3 -A-A bough · nightA · through · lightA
- 4 ABAB glareA · riseB · airA · criesB
- 5 ABAB rookA · wingsB · forsookA · springsB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There blooms no bud in May | 6 | ······ |
| Can for its white compare | 6 | ····˘/ |
| With snow at break of day, | 6 | ······ |
| On fields forlorn and bare. | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| For shadow it hath rose, | 6 | ·/···· |
| Azure, and amethyst; | 6 | /˘·/˘˘ |
| And every air that blows | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Dies out in beauteous mist. | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| It hangs the frozen bough | 6 | ···/˘· |
| With flowers on which the night | 6 | ·/···· |
| Wheeling her darkness through | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Scatters a starry light. | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Fearful of its pale glare | 6 | /˘···· |
| In flocks the starlings rise; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Slide through the frosty air, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And perch with plaintive cries. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Only the inky rook, | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Hunched cold in ruffled wings, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Its snowy nest forsook, | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| Caws of unnumbered Springs. | 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.