A Patch of Old Snow
There's a patch of old snow in a cornerThat I should have guessedWas a blow-away paper the rainHad brought to rest.
It is speckled with grime as ifSmall print overspread it,The news of a day I've forgotten--If I ever read it.
Words in this poem
- grime n.
- Foul matter; dirt, rubbed in; sullying blackness, deeply ingrained. [Cf. Dan. grim, griim, lampblack, soot, grime, Icel. gr mask, sort of hood, OD. grijmsel, grimsel, soot, smut, and E. grimace.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Patch of Old Snow is in the public domain. This text is taken from Mountain Interval, Project Gutenberg ebook #29345; 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, A Patch of Old Snow, in Mountain Interval (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #29345, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/frost-mountain-interval/a-patch-of-old-snow.html, id L02641.
Form and metre
A Patch of Old Snow is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 corner · guessedA · rain · restA
- 2 -A-A if · itA · forgotten · itA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There's a patch of old snow in a corner | 10 | ········/˘ |
| That I should have guessed | 5 | ····· |
| Was a blow-away paper the rain | 9 | ···˘//˘·· |
| Had brought to rest. | 4 | ···· |
| It is speckled with grime as if | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Small print overspread it, | 6 | ······ |
| The news of a day I've forgotten-- | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| If I ever read it. | 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.