A January Night
THE rain smites more and more,The east wind snarls and sneezes;Through the joints of the quivering doorThe water wheezes.
The tip of each ivy-shootWrithes on its neighbour’s face;There is some hid dread afootThat we cannot trace.
Is it the spirit astrayOf the man at the house belowWhose coffin they took in to-day?We do not know.
Words in this poem
- neighbour v. i.
- To dwell in the vicinity; to be a neighbor, or in the neighborhood; to be near.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A January Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #3255; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hardy, A January Night, in Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3255, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-moments-of-vision/a-january-night.html, id L24143.
Form and metre
A January Night is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is short measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
See other poems in short measure.
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 ABAB moreA · sneezesB · doorA · wheezesB
- 2 -A-A shoot · faceA · afoot · traceA
- 3 ABAB astrayA · belowB · dayA · knowB
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 short measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| THE rain smites more and more, | 6 | ······ |
| The east wind snarls and sneezes; | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Through the joints of the quivering door | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The water wheezes. | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| The tip of each ivy-shoot | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Writhes on its neighbour’s face; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| There is some hid dread afoot | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| That we cannot trace. | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Is it the spirit astray | 7 | ···/˘˘/ |
| Of the man at the house below | 8 | ········ |
| Whose coffin they took in to-day? | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| We do not know. | 4 | ···· |
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.