Storm Fear
WHEN the wind works against us in the dark,And pelts with snowThe lowest chamber window on the east,And whispers with a sort of stifled bark,The beast,'Come out! Come out!'--It costs no inward struggle not to go,Ah, no!I count our strength,Two and a child,Those of us not asleep subdued to markHow the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,--How drifts are piled,Dooryard and road ungraded,Till even the comforting barn grows far awayAnd my heart owns a doubtWhether 'tis in us to arise with dayAnd save ourselves unaided.
Words in this poem
- piled a.
- Having a pile or point; pointed. [From 2d Pile.]
- dooryard n.
- A yard in front of a house or around the door of a house.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Storm Fear 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, Storm Fear, in A Boy's Will (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3021, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/frost-boys-will/storm-fear.html, id L04625.
Form and metre
Storm Fear is 18 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 28% 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 ABCACDBBEFAEF-GDG- darkA · snowB · eastC · barkA · beastC · outD · goB · noB · strengthE · childF · markA · lengthE · piledF · ungraded · awayG · doubtD · dayG · unaided
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 |
|---|---|---|
| WHEN the wind works against us in the dark, | 10 | ·········· |
| And pelts with snow | 4 | ···· |
| The lowest chamber window on the east, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| The beast, | 2 | ·· |
| 'Come out! Come out!'-- | 4 | ···· |
| It costs no inward struggle not to go, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Ah, no! | 2 | ·· |
| I count our strength, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Two and a child, | 4 | ···· |
| Those of us not asleep subdued to mark | 10 | ····˘/˘/·· |
| How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,-- | 10 | ······/··· |
| How drifts are piled, | 4 | ···· |
| Dooryard and road ungraded, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Till even the comforting barn grows far away | 10 | ·/·/˘···˘/ |
| And my heart owns a doubt | 6 | ······ |
| Whether 'tis in us to arise with day | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| And save ourselves unaided. | 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.