Blackbird
He comes on chosen evenings,My blackbird bountiful, and singsOver the gardens of the townJust at the hour the sun goes down.His flight across the chimneys thick,By some divine arithmetic,Comes to his customary stack,And couches there his plumage black,And there he lifts his yellow bill,Kindled against the sunset, tillThese suburbs are like Dymock woodsWhere music has her solitudes,And while he mocks the winter’s wrongRapt on his pinnacle of song,Figured above our garden plotsThose are celestial chimney-pots.
Words in this poem
- bountiful a.
- Free in giving; liberal in bestowing gifts and favors.
- rapt n.
- An ecstasy; a trance. Bp. Morton. [From F. rapt abduction, rape, L. raptus, fr. rapere to seize and carry off, to transport; or fr. E. rapt, a. See Rapt, a., and Rapid.]
- pinnacle n.
- An architectural member, upright, and generally ending in a small spire, -- used to finish a buttress, to constitute a part in a proportion, as where pinnacles flank a gable or spire, and the like. [OE. pinacle, F. pinacle, L. pinnaculum, fr. pinna pinnacle, feather. See Pin a peg.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Blackbird is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, 1908-1919, Project Gutenberg ebook #51575; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Drinkwater, Blackbird, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/blackbird.html, id L23113.
Form and metre
Blackbird is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 88% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AABBCCDDEE--FFGG eveningsA · singsA · townB · downB · thickC · arithmeticC · stackD · blackD · billE · tillE · woods · solitudes · wrongF · songF · plotsG · potsG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| He comes on chosen evenings, | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| My blackbird bountiful, and sings | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘·· |
| Over the gardens of the town | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Just at the hour the sun goes down. | 8 | ···/···· |
| His flight across the chimneys thick, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| By some divine arithmetic, | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| Comes to his customary stack, | 8 | ···/˘·˘· |
| And couches there his plumage black, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And there he lifts his yellow bill, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Kindled against the sunset, till | 8 | /˘···/·· |
| These suburbs are like Dymock woods | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Where music has her solitudes, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And while he mocks the winter’s wrong | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Rapt on his pinnacle of song, | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| Figured above our garden plots | 8 | /˘··//˘· |
| Those are celestial chimney-pots. | 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.