A Storm Simile
See, where on high the moving masses, piledBy the wind, break in groups grotesque and wild,Present strange shapes to view;Oft flares a pallid flash from out their shrouds,As though some air-born giant 'mid the cloudsSudden his falchion drew.
Words in this poem
- piled a.
- Having a pile or point; pointed. [From 2d Pile.]
- falchion n.
- A broad-bladed sword, slightly curved, shorter and lighter than the ordinary sword; -- used in the Middle Ages. [OE. fauchon, OF. fauchon, LL. fälcio, fr. L. falx, falcis, a sickle, cf. Gr. falcon; cf. It. falcione. Cf. Defalcation.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Storm Simile is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, the various hands translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Victor Hugo, A Storm Simile, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/a-storm-simile.html, id L26869.
Form and metre
A Storm Simile is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes AABCCB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See 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 AABCCB piledA · wildA · viewB · shroudsC · cloudsC · drewB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| See, where on high the moving masses, piled | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| By the wind, break in groups grotesque and wild, | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Present strange shapes to view; | 6 | /˘···· |
| Oft flares a pallid flash from out their shrouds, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| As though some air-born giant 'mid the clouds | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Sudden his falchion drew. | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
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.