A Winter Night
The winter wind is raving fierce and shrill,And chides with angry moan the frosty skies;The white stars gaze with sleepless Gorgon eyesThat freeze the earth in terror fixed and still.We reck not of the wild night's gloom and chill,Housed from its rage, dear friend; and fancy flies,Lured by the hand of beckoning memories,Back to those summer evenings on the hillWhere we together watched the sun go downBeyond the gold-washed uplands, while his firesTouched into glittering life the vanes and spiresPiercing the purpling mists that veiled the town.The wintry night thy voice and eyes beguile,Till wake the sleeping summers in thy smile.
Words in this poem
- angry a.
- Troublesome; vexatious; rigorous. [See Anger.]
- sleepless a.
- Having no sleep; wakeful.
- reck v. t.
- To make account of; to care for; to heed; to regard. [AS. reccan, remccan, to care for; akin to OS. rokian, OHG. ruochan, G. geruhen, Icel. rækja, also to E. reckon, rake an implement. See Rake, and cf. Reckon.]
- veiled a.
- Covered by, or as by, a veil; hidden.
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Winter Night is in the public domain. This text is taken from Pike County Ballads and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #6062; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Hay, A Winter Night, in Pike County Ballads and Other Poems (1871), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6062, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hay-pike-county/a-winter-night.html, id L21625.
Form and metre
A Winter Night is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 ABBAABBACDDCEE shrillA · skiesB · eyesB · stillA · chillA · fliesB · memoriesB · hillA · downC · firesD · spiresD · townC · beguileE · smileE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The winter wind is raving fierce and shrill, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| And chides with angry moan the frosty skies; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The white stars gaze with sleepless Gorgon eyes | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| That freeze the earth in terror fixed and still. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| We reck not of the wild night's gloom and chill, | 10 | ·········· |
| Housed from its rage, dear friend; and fancy flies, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Lured by the hand of beckoning memories, | 11 | ·····/˘˘/˘˘ |
| Back to those summer evenings on the hill | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Where we together watched the sun go down | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Beyond the gold-washed uplands, while his fires | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| Touched into glittering life the vanes and spires | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Piercing the purpling mists that veiled the town. | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| The wintry night thy voice and eyes beguile, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Till wake the sleeping summers in thy smile. | 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.