Poème D’Automne
The autumn leavesAre too heavy with color.The slender treesOn the Vulcan RoadAre dressed in scarlet and goldLike young courtesansWaiting for their lovers.But soonThe winter windsWill strip their bodies bareAnd thenThe sharp, sleet-stungCaresses of the coldWill be their onlyLove.
About this text
Poème D’Automne is in the public domain. This text is taken from The weary blues, Project Gutenberg ebook #74745; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Langston Hughes, Poème D’Automne, in The Weary Blues (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #74745, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hughes-weary-blues/po-me-d-automne.html, id L01505.
Form and metre
Poème D’Automne is 15 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 4.5 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 80% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 --A-B-A-----B-- leaves · color · treesA · road · goldB · courtesans · loversA · soon · winds · bare · then · stung · coldB · only · love
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The autumn leaves | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Are too heavy with color. | 7 | ··/˘·/˘ |
| The slender trees | 4 | ·/˘· |
| On the Vulcan Road | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Are dressed in scarlet and gold | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Like young courtesans | 5 | ····· |
| Waiting for their lovers. | 6 | /˘··/˘ |
| But soon | 2 | ·· |
| The winter winds | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Will strip their bodies bare | 6 | ···/˘· |
| And then | 2 | ·· |
| The sharp, sleet-stung | 4 | ···· |
| Caresses of the cold | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| Will be their only | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Love. | 1 | · |
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.