Flower-gathering
I LEFT you in the morning,And in the morning glow,You walked a way beside meTo make me sad to go.Do you know me in the gloaming,Gaunt and dusty grey with roaming?Are you dumb because you know me not,Or dumb because you know?All for me? And not a questionFor the faded flowers gayThat could take me from beside youFor the ages of a day?They are yours, and be the measureOf their worth for you to treasure,The measure of the little whileThat I've been long away.
Words in this poem
- gloaming n.
- Twilight; dusk; the fall of the evening. [Scot. & North of Eng., and in poetry.] Hogg. [See Gloom.]
- gaunt a.
- Attenuated, as with fasting or suffering; lean; meager; pinched and grim. [Cf. Norw. gand a thin pointed stick, a tall and thin man, and W. gwan weak.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Flower-gathering is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Boy's Will, Project Gutenberg ebook #3021; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Frost, Flower-gathering, in A Boy's Will (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3021, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/frost-boys-will/flower-gathering.html, id L04628.
Form and metre
Flower-gathering is 16 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -A-ABB-A-C-CDD-C morning · glowA · me · goA · gloamingB · roamingB · not · knowA · question · gayC · you · dayC · measureD · treasureD · while · awayC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I LEFT you in the morning, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And in the morning glow, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| You walked a way beside me | 7 | ····˘/· |
| To make me sad to go. | 6 | ······ |
| Do you know me in the gloaming, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Gaunt and dusty grey with roaming? | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Are you dumb because you know me not, | 9 | ········· |
| Or dumb because you know? | 6 | ······ |
| All for me? And not a question | 8 | ······/˘ |
| For the faded flowers gay | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| That could take me from beside you | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| For the ages of a day? | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| They are yours, and be the measure | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Of their worth for you to treasure, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| The measure of the little while | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| That I've been long away. | 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.