Birds at Winter Nightfall (Triolet)
AROUND the house the flakes fly faster,And all the berries now are goneFrom holly and cotoneasterAround the house. The flakes fly!—fasterShutting indoors that crumb-outcasterWe used to see upon the lawnAround the house. The flakes fly faster,And all the berries now are gone!
Words in this poem
- indoors adv.
- Within the house; -- usually separated, in doors.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Birds at Winter Nightfall (Triolet) is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of the Past and the Present, Project Gutenberg ebook #3168; 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, Birds at Winter Nightfall (Triolet), in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3168, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-past-and-present/birds-at-winter-nightfall-triolet.html, id L16913.
Form and metre
Birds at Winter Nightfall (Triolet) is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAAABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.5 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 62% 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 ABAAABAB fasterA · goneB · cotoneasterA · fasterA · outcasterA · lawnB · fasterA · goneB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| AROUND the house the flakes fly faster, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And all the berries now are gone | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| From holly and cotoneaster | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Around the house. The flakes fly!—faster | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster | 9 | /˘/······ |
| We used to see upon the lawn | 8 | ········ |
| Around the house. The flakes fly faster, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| And all the berries now are gone! | 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.