Challenge
You fools behind the panes who peerAt the strong black anger of the sky,Come out and feel the storm swing by,Aye, take its blow on your lips, and hearThe wind in the branches cry.
No. Leave us to the day’s device,Draw to your blinds and take your ease,Grow peak’d in the face and crook’d in the knees;Your sinews could not pay the priceWhen the storm goes through the trees.
About this text
Challenge 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, Challenge, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/challenge.html, id L23041.
Form and metre
Challenge is 10 lines in 2 stanzas of 5 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 ABBAB peerA · skyB · byB · hearA · cryB
- 2 ABBAB deviceA · easeB · kneesB · priceA · treesB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| You fools behind the panes who peer | 8 | ········ |
| At the strong black anger of the sky, | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Come out and feel the storm swing by, | 8 | ········ |
| Aye, take its blow on your lips, and hear | 9 | ········· |
| The wind in the branches cry. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| No. Leave us to the day’s device, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Draw to your blinds and take your ease, | 8 | ········ |
| Grow peak’d in the face and crook’d in the knees; | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| Your sinews could not pay the price | 8 | ········ |
| When the storm goes through the trees. | 7 | ······· |
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.