November
This is the treacherous month when autumn daysWith summer's voice come bearing summer's gifts.Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster liftsHer head and blooms again. The soft, warm hazeMakes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts,The violet returns. Snow noiseless siftsEre night, an icy shroud, which morning's raysWill idly shine upon and slowly melt,Too late to bid the violet live again.The treachery, at last, too late, is plain;Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.What joy sufficient hath November felt?What profit from the violet's day of pain?
Words in this poem
- sere n.
- Claw; talon. Chapman. [F. serre.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
November is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Calendar of Sonnets, Project Gutenberg ebook #9825; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Helen Hunt Jackson, November, in A Calendar of Sonnets (1886), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9825, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/jackson-sonnets/november.html, id L22655.
Form and metre
November is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 71% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 ABBAABBACDDCCD daysA · giftsB · liftsB · hazeA · waysA · driftsB · siftsB · raysA · meltC · againD · plainD · dweltC · feltC · painD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| This is the treacherous month when autumn days | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| With summer's voice come bearing summer's gifts. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts | 10 | ˘/···/˘/˘· |
| Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts | 10 | ·/˘˘˘/·/˘· |
| Ere night, an icy shroud, which morning's rays | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Will idly shine upon and slowly melt, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Too late to bid the violet live again. | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| The treachery, at last, too late, is plain; | 10 | ·/˘˘······ |
| Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt. | 10 | ···/˘···/· |
| What joy sufficient hath November felt? | 10 | ··˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| What profit from the violet's day of pain? | 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.