The Oven Bird
There is a singer everyone has heard,Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.He says that leaves are old and that for flowersMid-summer is to spring as one to ten.He says the early petal-fall is pastWhen pear and cherry bloom went down in showersOn sunny days a moment overcast;And comes that other fall we name the fall.He says the highway dust is over all.The bird would cease and be as other birdsBut that he knows in singing not to sing.The question that he frames in all but wordsIs what to make of a diminished thing.
Words in this poem
- everyone n.
- Everybody; -- commonly separated, every one. [OE. everychon.]
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- sunny a.
- Of or pertaining to the sun; proceeding from, or resembling the sun; hence, shining; bright; brilliant; radiant.
- overcast v. t.
- To cast or cover over; hence, to cloud; to darken.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Oven Bird 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 Oven Bird, in Mountain Interval (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #29345, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/frost-mountain-interval/the-oven-bird.html, id L02646.
Form and metre
The Oven Bird is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes AABCBDCDEEFGFG. The metre is iambic pentameter, as Wikipedia: The Oven Bird has it. 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 36% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABCBDCDEEFGFG heardA · birdA · againB · flowersC · tenB · pastD · showersC · overcastD · fallE · allE · birdsF · singG · wordsF · thingG
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There is a singer everyone has heard, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| He says that leaves are old and that for flowers | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| He says the early petal-fall is past | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| On sunny days a moment overcast; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| And comes that other fall we name the fall. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| He says the highway dust is over all. | 10 | ···/······ |
| The bird would cease and be as other birds | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| But that he knows in singing not to sing. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The question that he frames in all but words | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Is what to make of a diminished thing. | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
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.