Before and After Summer I
LOOKING forward to the springOne puts up with anything.On this February day,Though the winds leap down the street,Wintry scourgings seem but play,And these later shafts of sleet—Sharper pointed than the first—And these later snows—the worst—Are as a half-transparent blindRiddled by rays from sun behind.
Words in this poem
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
- sleet n.
- The part of a mortar extending from the chamber to the trunnions.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Before and After Summer I is in the public domain. This text is taken from Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with Miscellaneous Pieces, Project Gutenberg ebook #2863; 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, Before and After Summer I, in Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #2863, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-satires/before-and-after-summer-i.html, id L24037.
Form and metre
Before and After Summer I is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 60% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 AABCBCDDEE springA · anythingA · dayB · streetC · playB · sleetC · firstD · worstD · blindE · behindE
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| LOOKING forward to the spring | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| One puts up with anything. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| On this February day, | 7 | ··/˘·˘· |
| Though the winds leap down the street, | 7 | ······· |
| Wintry scourgings seem but play, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| And these later shafts of sleet | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| —Sharper pointed than the first— | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| And these later snows—the worst— | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Are as a half-transparent blind | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Riddled by rays from sun behind. | 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.