Stars
HOW countlessly they congregateO'er our tumultuous snow,Which flows in shapes as tall as treesWhen wintry winds do blow!--As if with keenness for our fate,Our faltering few steps onTo white rest, and a place of restInvisible at dawn,--And yet with neither love nor hate,Those stars like some snow-whiteMinerva's snow-white marble eyesWithout the gift of sight.
Words in this poem
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
- faltering a.
- Hesitating; trembling.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Stars 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, Stars, in A Boy's Will (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3021, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/frost-boys-will/stars.html, id L04624.
Form and metre
Stars is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.3 syllables. 50% 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 AB-BAC-CAD-D congregateA · snowB · trees · blowB · fateA · onC · rest · dawnC · hateA · whiteD · eyes · sightD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| HOW countlessly they congregate | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| O'er our tumultuous snow, | 8 | ·/˘·/˘˘· |
| Which flows in shapes as tall as trees | 8 | ········ |
| When wintry winds do blow!-- | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| As if with keenness for our fate, | 8 | ···/˘·/· |
| Our faltering few steps on | 8 | /˘/˘˘··· |
| To white rest, and a place of rest | 8 | ········ |
| Invisible at dawn,-- | 6 | ˘/˘˘·· |
| And yet with neither love nor hate, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Those stars like some snow-white | 6 | ······ |
| Minerva's snow-white marble eyes | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| Without the gift of sight. | 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.