Changing Time
The cloud looked in at the window,And said to the day, "Be dark!"And the roguish rain tapped hard on the pane,To stifle the song of the lark.
The wind sprang up in the tree topsAnd shrieked with a voice of death,But the rough-voiced breeze, that shook the trees,Was touched with a violet's breath.
Words in this poem
- pane n.
- The narrow edge of a hammer head. See Peen. [F. panne.]
- voiced a.
- Furnished with a voice; expressed by the voice.
- shook v. t.
- To pack, as staves, in a shook.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Changing Time is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Project Gutenberg ebook #18338; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Paul Laurence Dunbar, Changing Time, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/changing-time.html, id L00573.
Form and metre
Changing Time is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is anapaestic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic 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 -A-A window · darkA · pane · larkA
- 2 -A-A tops · deathA · trees · breathA
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 anapaestic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The cloud looked in at the window, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And said to the day, "Be dark!" | 7 | ······· |
| And the roguish rain tapped hard on the pane, | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| To stifle the song of the lark. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The wind sprang up in the tree tops | 8 | ········ |
| And shrieked with a voice of death, | 8 | ··˘····· |
| But the rough-voiced breeze, that shook the trees, | 9 | ········· |
| Was touched with a violet's breath. | 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.