Autumn
The Autumn skies are flush'd with gold,And fair and bright the rivers run;These are but streams of winter cold,And painted mists that quench the sun.
In secret boughs no sweet birds sing,In secret boughs no bird can shroud;These are but leaves that take to wing,And wintry winds that pipe so loud.
'Tis not trees' shade, but cloudy gloomsThat on the cheerless valleys fall,The flowers are in their grassy tombs,And tears of dew are on them all.
Words in this poem
- 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
Autumn is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood, Project Gutenberg ebook #15652; 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 Hood, Autumn, in The Song of the Shirt, and Other Poems (1826–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15652, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poetical-works/autumn-3.html, id L26119.
Form and metre
Autumn is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
See other poems in iambic 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 ABAB goldA · runB · coldA · sunB
- 2 ABAB singA · shroudB · wingA · loudB
- 3 ABAB gloomsA · fallB · tombsA · allB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The Autumn skies are flush'd with gold, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And fair and bright the rivers run; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| These are but streams of winter cold, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And painted mists that quench the sun. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| In secret boughs no sweet birds sing, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| In secret boughs no bird can shroud; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| These are but leaves that take to wing, | 8 | ········ |
| And wintry winds that pipe so loud. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| 'Tis not trees' shade, but cloudy glooms | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| That on the cheerless valleys fall, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The flowers are in their grassy tombs, | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| And tears of dew are on them all. | 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.