Before and After Summer II
Shadows of the October pineReach into this room of mine:On the pine there stands a bird;He is shadowed with the tree.Mutely perched he bills no word;Blank as I am even is he.For those happy suns are past,Fore-discerned in winter last.When went by their pleasure, then?I, alas, perceived not when.
Words in this poem
- mutely adv.
- Without uttering words or sounds; in a mute manner; silently.
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Before and After Summer II 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 II, 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-ii.html, id L24038.
Form and metre
Before and After Summer II 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 pineA · mineA · birdB · treeC · wordB · heC · pastD · lastD · thenE · whenE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Shadows of the October pine | 8 | /···˘/˘· |
| Reach into this room of mine: | 7 | ······· |
| On the pine there stands a bird; | 7 | ······· |
| He is shadowed with the tree. | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| Mutely perched he bills no word; | 8 | /˘·˘···· |
| Blank as I am even is he. | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| For those happy suns are past, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Fore-discerned in winter last. | 8 | ·˘/˘·/˘· |
| When went by their pleasure, then? | 7 | ····/˘· |
| I, alas, perceived not when. | 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.