The Oft-Repeated Dream
She had no saying dark enoughFor the dark pine that keptForever trying the window-latchOf the room where they slept.
The tireless but ineffectual handsThat with every futile passMade the great tree seem as a little birdBefore the mystery of glass!
It never had been inside the room,And only one of the twoWas afraid in an oft-repeated dreamOf what the tree might do.
Words in this poem
- futile a.
- Talkative; loquacious; tattling. [L. futilis that easily pours out, that easily lets loose, vain, worthless, from the root of fundere to pour out: cf. F. futile. See Fuse, v. t.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Oft-Repeated Dream 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, The Oft-Repeated Dream, in Mountain Interval (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #29345, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/frost-mountain-interval/the-oft-repeated-dream.html, id L02658.
Form and metre
The Oft-Repeated Dream is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 84% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 67% 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-A enough · keptA · latch · sleptA
- 2 -A-A hands · passA · bird · glassA
- 3 -A-A room · twoA · dream · doA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| She had no saying dark enough | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| For the dark pine that kept | 6 | ······ |
| Forever trying the window-latch | 9 | ˘/˘/˘·/˘· |
| Of the room where they slept. | 6 | ······ |
| The tireless but ineffectual hands | 10 | ·/˘··˘/˘˘· |
| That with every futile pass | 8 | ··/˘˘/˘· |
| Made the great tree seem as a little bird | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Before the mystery of glass! | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| It never had been inside the room, | 9 | ·/˘··/··· |
| And only one of the two | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream | 10 | ·˘/···˘/˘· |
| Of what the tree might do. | 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.