September
O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped!The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strungOn wands; the chestnut's yellow pennons tongueTo every wind its harvest challenge. SteepedIn yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped;And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked amongThe yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrungHer utmost gold. To highest boughs have leapedThe purple grape,--last thing to ripen, lateBy very reason of its precious cost.O Heart, remember, vintages are lostIf grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait.Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy's estate,Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost!
Words in this poem
- mayhap adv.
- Perhaps; peradventure. [Prov. or Dialectic]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
September 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, September, in A Calendar of Sonnets (1886), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9825, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/jackson-sonnets/september.html, id L22653.
Form and metre
September 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 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 ABBAABBACDDCCD heapedA · strungB · tongueB · steepedA · reapedA · amongB · wrungB · leapedA · lateC · costD · lostD · waitC · estateC · frostD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped! | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| On wands; the chestnut's yellow pennons tongue | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| To every wind its harvest challenge. Steeped | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked among | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrung | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Her utmost gold. To highest boughs have leaped | 10 | ·/···/˘··· |
| The purple grape,--last thing to ripen, late | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| By very reason of its precious cost. | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| O Heart, remember, vintages are lost | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘˘·· |
| If grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy's estate, | 11 | ···/˘˘/··˘/ |
| Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost! | 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.