Morning at the Window
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,And along the trampled edges of the streetI am aware of the damp souls of housemaidsSprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to meTwisted faces from the bottom of the street,And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirtsAn aimless smile that hovers in the airAnd vanishes along the level of the roofs.
Words in this poem
- aimless a.
- Without aim or purpose; as, an aimless life.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Morning at the Window is in the public domain. This text is taken from Prufrock and Other Observations, Project Gutenberg ebook #1459; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: T. S. Eliot, Morning at the Window, in Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1459, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/eliot-prufrock/morning-at-the-window.html, id L04657.
Form and metre
Morning at the Window is 9 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 56% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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.
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, | 12 | ··/˘/˘··/˘/˘ |
| And along the trampled edges of the street | 11 | ·˘/·/˘/˘··· |
| I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids | 12 | ··˘/········ |
| Sprouting despondently at area gates. | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| The brown waves of fog toss up to me | 9 | ········· |
| Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, | 11 | /˘/˘··/˘··· |
| And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts | 11 | ····/˘··/˘· |
| An aimless smile that hovers in the air | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| And vanishes along the level of the roofs. | 11 | ·/˘˘/·/˘··· |
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.