October
The month of carnival of all the year,When Nature lets the wild earth go its wayAnd spend whole seasons on a single day.The spring-time holds her white and purple dear;October, lavish, flaunts them far and near;The summer charily her reds doth layLike jewels on her costliest array;October, scornful, burns them on a bier.The winter hoards his pearls of frost in signOf kingdom: whiter pearls than winter knew,Or Empress wore, in Egypt's ancient line,October, feasting 'neath her dome of blue,Drinks at a single draught, slow filtered throughSunshiny air, as in a tingling wine!
Words in this poem
- charily adv.
- In a chary manner; carefully; cautiously; frugally.
- bier n.
- A handbarrow or portable frame on which a corpse is placed or borne to the grave. [OE. bæe, beere, AS. b, b; akin to D. baar, OHG. bara, G. bahre, Icel barar, Dbaare, L. feretrum, Gr. , from the same bear to produce. See 1st Bear, and cf. Barr]
- sunshiny a.
- Bright with the rays of the sun; clear, warm, or pleasant; as, a sunshiny day.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
October 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, October, in A Calendar of Sonnets (1886), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9825, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/jackson-sonnets/october.html, id L22654.
Form and metre
October 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 92%).
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 ABBAABBACDCDDC yearA · wayB · dayB · dearA · nearA · layB · arrayB · bierA · signC · knewD · lineC · blueD · throughD · wineC
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 month of carnival of all the year, | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| When Nature lets the wild earth go its way | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And spend whole seasons on a single day. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The spring-time holds her white and purple dear; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| October, lavish, flaunts them far and near; | 10 | ˘/˘/˘····· |
| The summer charily her reds doth lay | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘···· |
| Like jewels on her costliest array; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘˘/ |
| October, scornful, burns them on a bier. | 10 | ˘/˘/˘····· |
| The winter hoards his pearls of frost in sign | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Of kingdom: whiter pearls than winter knew, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Or Empress wore, in Egypt's ancient line, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| October, feasting 'neath her dome of blue, | 10 | ˘/˘/˘····· |
| Drinks at a single draught, slow filtered through | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Sunshiny air, as in a tingling wine! | 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.